LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Shelf _ 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



X 



CIVIL SERVICE 

REFORM. 

ILLUSTRATING 

1. THE PLUKDEK SYSTEM. 

2. THE SPOILS SYSTEM. 

3. THE COMPETITIVE SYSTEM. 

4. THE EDUCATIONAL AND PRIZE 

SYSTEM. 



PROF. W. B. WEDGWOOD. 



PORTLAND : 
STEPHEN BERRY, PRINTER. 

1883. 




<c- 



^5^ 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883, 

BY 

Prof. W. B. Wedgwood, 

in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



PKEFACE 



In presenting to the public the result of a somewhat 
careful examination of the subject of Civil Service Re- 
form, the writer disclaims all partyism. He has en- 
deavored to present the subject in such manner, that it 
could be understood by the reader. The facts stated 
before the committee of the United States Senate on 
" Civil Service and Retrenchment," when arranged under 
the four distinct systems of conducting the service of the 
Government, become very interesting and instructive. 

The odious system of using official position to plunder 
the treasury and the revenue, by transferring allegiance 
from the Government the officer professes to serve, to 
the contractor, the broker, the merchant who is willing 
to share with him the plunder, is denounced by all 
parties. The Plunder System of unjust assessment and 
taxation, in some cases amounting to actual confiscation, 
is equally odious. 

If the Spoils System means simply that the party 
which is successful at an election shall fill the subordi- 
nate offices with members of that party, no serious ob- 
jection can be raised against it. "To the victorious 
party belong the offices," has been the maxim of both 
parties for more than half a century. The Competitive 



4 PREFACE. 

System proposes to disregard all party principles and 
distinctions, and fill all subordinate offices by a competi- 
tive examination in twenty common school questions. 
This examination does not test the business capacity of 
the applicant. 

The Educational and Prize System demands a higher 
grade of learning and ability than either of the other 
systems. To enter the civil service as a first-class clerk, 
it requires the same grade of learning and ability re- 
quired to qualify an applicant to enter the Military 
Academy at West Point or the Naval Academy at 
Annapolis. For the purpose of furnishing preliminary 
instruction, voluntary training schools are to be estab- 
lished in every common school district. The name of 
each person who completes the prescribed course of in- 
struction will be registered. All vacancies are to be 
filled by lot from the registered list. Appointments for 
four years only, subject to removal for cause, incompe- 
tency to be sufficient cause at any time. No reappoint- 
ments except as experts. Each clerk receives, as a prize, 
double pay for half the time his services would be re- 
quired in private life. The clerk is to pursue a four- 
years' course of study in some school, college or uni- 
versity. At the end of four years, his course of study 
and his clerkship will terminate, and, making room for 
another to have the same advantages he has had, he will 
pass on to the duties, honors and emoluments of private 
life. The civil service will thus be made to contribute 
largely to the cause of popular education. The wealth 
of this nation consists largely in the intelligence of the 
people. Uncounted millions are spent every year in 
promoting popular education. The rewards and the 



PREFACE. O 

prizes of the civil service must be made to contribute to 
the same object. 

The tendency to long continuance in office should be, 
checked. It was declared by the founders of this Re- 
public to be dangerous to liberty. The argument for it 
is the skill and ability acquired by practice, rendering 
the incumbent more useful in the administration of 
the affairs of the Government. The argument for rota- 
tion in office is the common right to hold office, which 
demands the widest distribution. 

Attention is called to the abridged statement of the 
witnesses examined before the committee of the Senate, 
and particularly to the statement of A. W. Beard, former 
Collector of the Port of Boston and Charlestown. It is 
the statement of a business man, made in a business 
way, of his mode of transacting the business of the Gov- 
ernment. 



CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 



The subject of Civil Service Reform in the United 
States has created a deeper interest in the minds of the 
people within the last year than at any previous period. 
This interest has been created by the introduction and 
passage of a Bill in Congress, under the title of "A Bill 
to Regulate and Improve the Civil Service of the United 
States." This Bill was introduced by Mr. Pendleton, of 
the Senate, and referred to the Committee on "Civil 
Service and Retrenchment" of that body. A large 
number of witnesses were examined before that com- 
mittee, and a great mass of valuable testimony was 
submitted. 

Among those witnesses were Dorman B. Eaton, Chair- 
man of the Civil Service Commission appointed by 
General Grant ; Henry G. Pierson, Post Master, of New 
York ; Silas W. Burt, Naval Officer of the Port of New 
York ; Everett P. Wheeler, of New York City ; Edward 
0. Graves, Superintendent of the National Bank Re- 
demption Agency in the Treasury Department at Wash- 
ington and Chief Examiner of the Civil Service ; A. W. 
Beard, Collector of the Port of Boston and Charlestown ; 
George William Curtis, of New York ; John L. Thomas, 
Collector of the Port of Baltimore. Copious extracts 



8 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

from the statements of these witnesses will be given 
hereafter, to which the reader is referred. Previous to 
this discussion in Congress, the subject had attracted 
but little attention among the masses of the people, and 
the meaning and definition of the term " Civil Service" 
was known and understood to a very limited extent. 

The term " Naval Service," or the term "Military 
Service," was generally understood to embrace all who 
were engaged in those branches of the service. The term 
Civil Service embraces all who are engaged in the service 
of the Government, not included in the naval or military 
service. In its broadest extent, it includes the whole 
legislative, executive and judicial offices of the Gov- 
ernment. In the Bill passed by Congress, and in the 
discussions attending its passage, the term has been con- 
fined to the executive branch of the Government. This 
discussion has evolved four distinct systems of conduct- 
ing the executive branch of the Government : 

1. The Plunder System. 

2. The Spoils System. 

3. The Competitive System. 

4. The Educational and Prize System. 

The witnesses referred to as examined before the com- 
mittee of the Senate, and the speeches in Congress, have 
thrown a flood of light upon each of these systems. We 
propose to examine each separately, in the order above 
named. 

THE PLUNDER SYSTEM. 

Under President Johnson, the Collector of the Port 
of New York, the Naval Officer and the Survej^or en- 
joyed large official perquisites in addition to their sala- 



THE PLUNDER SYSTEM. 9 

ries. These perquisites, arising from smuggled and 
undervalued goods, sometimes amounted in a year to 
eight times as much as their salaries for the same period. 
The net proceeds of these seizures were divided thus : 
One-fourth to the seizing officer or informer; one-fourth 
was divided equally among the three officers above 
named, and one-half went to the United States. The 
seizure officers encouraged smugglers, who were per- 
mitted to make several ventures with impunity and then 
could afford to have a lot seized for the benefit of the 
officers. The Collector, Naval Officer and Surveyor were 
co-partners in this plunder. There were many sinecur- 
ists or clerks appointed to receive a salary without per- 
forming any service. In the Custom House and on the 
wharves, it was necessary for the merchant to pay a fee 
to most of the clerks and officers with whom he dealt. 
Obstacles confronted him if he refused, and as complaint 
brought no relief, the easiest way was to pay the exac- 
tion. These clerks and officers who received them, fre- 
quently collected in this way sums double the amount 
of their salaries from the Government for a like period. 
The avenue to bribery was opened wide by these prac- 
tices, and the lapse from a gratuity to a bribe was easy. 
Many shifted their fealty from the Government they 
professed to serve, to the merchants or brokers, who paid 
them a larger compensation. What was at first for 
alleged overwork was imperceptibly advanced to a bribe 
for malfeasance. There were weighers and gaugers 
bribed to make short returns of quantities ; damage ap- 
praisers to certify a larger percentage of damage than 
existed; samplers to return a lower grade of quality for 
assessment of duties. By these practices, the revenue 



10 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

was robbed for the joint benefit of the unworthy officer 
and the importer. All goods smuggled or undervalued, 
were liable to seizure and confiscation. These facts, 
stated by Mr. Burt, illustrate what we understand by 
the Plunder System in the customs service. 

The same system of plunder may be traced at a later 
date to the Treasury Department at Washington. The 
extravagance in the bureau of engraving and printing 
is shown by a committee of investigation, of which Mr. 
Graves, one of the witnesses examined before the com- 
mission, was chairman. He shows that of a force of 958 
persons, 539, with annual salaries amounting to $390,000, 
were found to be superfluous and were discharged. 
The committee reported that for }^ears the force in some 
branches had been twice and even three times as great 
as the work required. In another division were found 
twenty messengers doing work which could be done by 
one. The committee reported that the plunder system 
was responsible for the extravagance and irregularities 
that had marked the administration of the bureau, and 
declared it had cost the people millions of dollars in that 
branch of the service alone. In consequence of this 
report, the annual appropriation for the bureau was re- 
duced from $800,000 to $200,000. Mr. Graves said 
before the committee of the Senate: I have no doubt 
that the work of the Treasury Department could be 
performed with two-thirds the number of clerks now 
employed, and that is a moderate estimate of the saving. 
Any proposal to improve the methods of doing business 
which involves a reduction of the force is necessarily 
rejected. 

The plunder system is not confined exclusively to the 



THE PLUNDER SYSTEM. 11 

National Government. It extends to all branches of 
the State and Municipal Government. The municipal 
service of the city of New York is said by Mr. Wheeler 
to be one of the worst in the world. The city has been 
parceled out pretty much between " Boards/' which 
were supposed to be non-partizan, yet which practically 
have been the most partizan Boards in the country. 
Take a board of four men, two Democrats and two 
Republicans. They have a large patronage by way of 
appointment. Practically, the patronage has been di- 
vided between them. The Democrats have appointed 
their friends, and the Republicans have appointed their 
friends. Then there have been factions in each party, 
and, as each faction got the upper hand, it turned out 
the friends of the old faction and put in the friends of 
the new. There has been no place where salaries have 
kept up to such a height, in order to enable assessments 
to be paid and to guard against risk of removal. The 
premiums which the tax payers of New York have paid 
to officials amount to an enormous sum. The greatest 
corruption and the greatest fraud have been perpetrated 
under just such contrivances as Boards, where the pat- 
ronage is divided. The people have been plundered by 
assessments and taxation to an amount approaching the 
actual confiscation of their property. The United States 
Government can borrow money at three per cent., and 
the citizen is taxed from two to two and a half per cent, 
on his personal and real property. The plunder system 
is without color of law, and criminal in its character. 



12 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 



THE SPOILS SYSTEM. 



The Spoils System is founded on the maxim, u To the 
victor belong the spoils. " This system is within the 
pale of the law, and is not tainted with any crime. It 
means simply, that the party which is successful at an 
election shall fill the subordinate offices with members 
of that party. It has been the doctrine of the successful 
party since the days of John Quincy Adams. He made 
scarcely any removals, and but few appointments. 

When Andrew Jackson was a candidate for the 
Presidency the second time, he declared himself em- 
phatically in favor of the doctrine that the party in 
power should make all their appointments to subordinate 
offices from their own party. He went into the election 
upon this principle and w T on the victory. He carried 
this principle fully into effect. He gave the spoils of office 
to members of his own party. He removed from office 
those who opposed his election. He thus confirmed the 
doctrine that in politics, where there are two parties, the 
victor shall hold the offices. This has been the rule of 
action adopted and adhered to by all political parties 
from the days of Jackson to the present time. 

Under the administration of President Johnson, the 
Collector of the Port of New York, during the three 
years of his incumbencj^ made 830 removals out of a 
total of 903 employed by him. Mr. Grinnell succeeded 
Mr. Smyth in that office. He was appointed by General 
Grant; He made a very large number of changes. He 
was in office about sixteen months, and made over 500 
removals and appointments. 

Mr. Graves says, that in the Treasury Department at 



THE SPOILS SYSTEM. 13 

Washington, clerks suspected of being Democrats were 
ruthlessly slaughtered. One of my best book-keepers 
was discharged on that ground, although he was ap- 
pointed under the civil service rules. I have no doubt, 
from general information, that the same system prevails 
with like results in all the departments of the Govern- 
ment. 

Mr. Beard says : One great object of the Civil Service 
Bill, as Senator Butler remarked, is to prevent removals 
and appointments on political pretexts, but it seems to 
me that parties are to be recognized in the first section 
of Mr. Pendleton's bill, by appointing two commissioners 
of one party and one of the other, which would give a 
majority to one party. You cannot avoid political in- 
fluence so far as the moral influence of that commission 
would be on one side or the other, according to which ■ 
side had the majority. 

Mr. Thomas saj^s : Since I was appointed Collector 
at Baltimore, no Democrats have been appointed. I 
did not appoint an} r . I do not think there is any one 
in the service there who is not a Republican. I do 
not suppose there was anybody of the opposite political 
party who ever applied for a position there. I did not 
know of any. The applicants were all known to be 
Republicans, and, generally, in every application, they 
would state what their services were to the party. I 
think it was pretty well understood that none but Re- 
publicans need apply. 

Under what is known as the Spoils System, those 
holding office were expected to contribute freely for the 
payment of the necessary expenses of carrying on what 
is known as a "campaign." -The expenses on such 



14 CIVTL SERVICE REFORM. 

occasions for printing, folding and distributing ballots, 
for procuring public speakers and halls in which to hold 
political meetings, and other legitimate expenses, are 
very large. 

Mr. Curtis saj-s : On one occasion there was a very- 
heavy assessment made in the New York Custom House. 
A body of gentlemen connected with the service there 
made representations to me of their absolute inability 
to pay this assessment, in addition to others that had 
been levied about the same time. I went to the Collector, 
whom I knew personally, and stated the case of these 
gentlemen. He heard me with impatient politeness, and 
when I had ended, he brought his fist down on his table 
with great emphasis, and said, "Well, Mr. Curtis, for 
every one of the gentlemen in this office who is unwilling 
to pay this assessment, I know of at least fifty, whose 
names are duly registered, who would very willingly 
take the place with all its incumbrances." 

THE COMPETITIVE SYSTEM. 

In the Competitive System, application is made to the 
head of the Department for an appointment in the civil 
service. When there are a sufficient number of appli- 
cants, the head of the Department selects from the 
applicants those whom he deems qualified to be placed 
in the competitive examination. A Board of three 
Commissioners is appointed to examine the applicants. 
These applicants are brought before the Board, and ex- 
amined by a written examination. The applicants are 
marked and graded. The Board makes out a list of the 
men according to their standing. 



THE COMPETITIVE SYSTEM. 15 

Mr. Burt says : Eight after the examination to 
which I referred, I had a vacancy to fill, and notified 
the Board, and they certified to me the names of the 
three standing first on the list. When the three names 
come in, T have, under the rule, the option to take any 
one of them. I send for the three men to appear before 
me, and I then try to judge as far as I can, in order to 
select from the three. I know exactly what the record 
of each in the examination has been, and I try to judge 
so far as possible from what they tell me of their past 
history, and from their general appearance, &c. I have 
generally selected the one who stood first, but sometimes 
I have availed myself of my option. 

The past examinations in the departments at Wash- 
ington, says Mr. Graves, has no rigid standard, and it 
is discretionary with the examiner to say whether a 
candidate has passed or not. I have been told that the 
standard in one department, at least, is very elastic, 
according to the amount of pressure in favor of the 
nominee. When it is not desirable to appoint him, the 
standard is very high ; when there is strong influence 
in his favor, the standard is lowered. 

Mr. Burt says : I do not think the present Appraiser 
has had a very earnest feeling in favor of this system ; 
he has felt it was a doubtful experiment that might be 
dropped at any time. When these rules were enjoined 
on us by President Hayes, they were enjoined upon us 
contrary to the expressed opinion and wish of the then 
Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Sherman, who never 
hesitated candidly to say that he thought it was a wrong 
s}'stem. He said he would carry it out, but he thought 
it was wrong. He did not think it was a proper system 



16 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

of appointment ; he thought that parties should be 
allowed to control the offices ; that if a party had been 
successful in an election, it should have control of all 
the offices. That was his theory, and he was always 
very candid in expressing it; but at the same time, he 
insisted upon a compliance of these rules, and they were 
complied with quite rigidly. There was one exception 
in regard to Mr. Sherman. I had, unfortunately, in a 
revision of these rules, made a modification. I had re- 
quested that the rules be modified, and the President 
consented to so modify them that temporary appoint- 
ments might be made for three months, which might be 
renewed for an additional three months. It was an un- 
fortunate thing, because it was taken advantage of to 
appoint men temporarily instead of permanently. They 
got around the rule during Mr. Sherman's time to this 
extent. The Presidential election was coming on, and 
there was from every point a constant pressure on the 
Collector to put in men temporarily and without ex- 
amination, and these temporary appointees were very 
generally poor men. 

I was told by a Senator the other day, said Mr. 
Wheeler, that favoritism had been shown in a particular 
examination, to a degree that vitiated the action of the 
examining Board. 

Mr. Eaton says : I may state, as chairman of the 
commission, I have had occasion to resist aj~>plications 
by the hundreds that I would aid in procuring appoint- 
ments. The penal provisions in this Bill will prevent 
any abuse of this sort. The Pendleton Bill says, in so 
many words, that if any body being an examiner or a 
commissioner shall use his influence or practice any 



THE COMPETITIVE SYSTEM. 17 

deception, &c., to prevent any person from having his 
fair, just and public opportunity to be examined ac- 
cording to such rules, then he shall be guilty of a 
criminal offence. As to opening the door to the miscel- 
laneous examination of everybody who chooses to come 
there, it is absolutely impracticable. 

Mr. Burt says : The Board consists of three officers 
of the customs, one selected by the Collector, one by the 
Surveyor, and one by myself. That selection is made 
so as to render the Board independent. Only one of 
them is amenable to any one officer. A great many go 
away with the idea that they have answered every question 
correctly, and when they find they are marked down 
sixty or seventy they feel outraged. There has been 
great expostulation and condemnation by persons who 
have come there and have been disappointed in their 
purpose. This system was put into operation in the 
Treasury Department in 1873, and it was abandoned in 
March, 1875. President Grant orally directed Secretary 
Bristow to discontinue the rules. This action was due 
solely to the opposition of Congress. When President 
Etayes came in, he did not revive the work of the com- 
mission, to any extent, but he asked for an appropriation 
to enable him to do so, and in every subsequent message, 
but no action was taken by Congress upon his recom- 
mendations. 

Under the British service regulations, in order to 
diminish the number of persons examined, and to save 
the necessity of examining persons who are not qualified, 
they have a preliminary pass examination of a very 
simple nature which winnows out those who are mani- 
festly unqualified, and the competitive examination is 



18 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

limited to those who pass this preliminary examination. 

Mr. Bates, in his examination before the civil service 
committee of the Senate, says : We had eighty-five ap- 
plicants, and that was a selected number. These candi- 
dates were admitted somewhat with reference to political 
reasons. It is not every one who applies, by any means, 
that is admitted to the examination. The Commissioner 
and Secretary admit those whom they suppose eligible 
for any reason, political or otherwise, and they exclude 
others. The Secretary has his own ideas and his own 
discretion about that ; and if he chooses to make a polit- 
ical test there, he can do so. There is nothing to pre- 
vent it that I know of. He picks out a list on grounds 
satisfactory to himself, and all that we have to do with 
it is to examine the persons named. 

This system is open to the following objections : 

1. There is no certain rule for marking. 

2. It is very elastic in its operation. 

3. It is open to the objection of pressure, influence 
and fraud. 

4. It does not have the confidence of the Govern- 
ment, nor of the great mass of the people. 

5. It does not test the business capacity of the appli- 
cant. 

But, with any and all of these objections, it is a de- 
cided improvement upon the Plunder System and the 
Spoils System. The Bill passed by Congress will 
accomplish much good, by turning the attention of the 
people to the examination and study of the civil service 
in all its grades and departments. It will be a stepping- 
stone to a higher and purer administration of the Gov- 
ernment in all its branches. 



THE EDUCATIONAL AND PRIZE SYSTEM. 19 

THE EDUCATIONAL AND PRIZE SYSTEM. 

This s} T stem demands a higher grade of learning and 
ability than either of the other systems. To enter the 
civil service, this system requires the same amount of 
learning and ability required to qualify an applicant to 
enter the Military Academy at West Point or the Naval 
Academy at Annapolis. 

When the student enters the Military Academy at 
West Point, he enters the military service of the United 
States ; and, in connection with that service, he is put 
on a course of instruction, for a period of four years, in 
those branches of science and art most useful to him in 
that service. 

When the student enters the Naval Academy at 
Annapolis, he enters the naval service of the United 
States ; and, in connection with that service^ he is put 
on a course of instruction, for a period of four years, in 
those branches of science and art most useful to him in 
that service. 

When the student enters upon the duties of any civil 
office of the United States, he enters the civil service ; 
and, in connection with that service, he is to be put on a 
course of instruction in the National University, or some 
other university or college, for a period of four years, in 
those branches of science and art most useful to him in 
that service. At the expiration of four years in all these 
branches of the service of the United States, the incum- 
bent is expected to " move on w and make room for 
others who have an equal claim to the advantages he has 
enjoyed. There are higher positions than cadetships or 
clerkships further on. They are the most numerous in 



20 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

private life, but they may be found by hundreds in the 
higher branches of the civil service. A force of 100.000 
are engaged in the administration of the civil service of 
this Government. 

With the object of furnishing preliminary instruc- 
tion, a plan has been adopted for organizing training 
schools in every common-school district in the United 
States. In these schools, instruction will be given by 
competent teachers in all the branches of popular educa- 
tipn necessary to prepare a scholar to enter upon the 
duties of a first-class clerk in the civil service of the 
United States. The teacher for each district is to be 
appointed by the Town Superintendent. It is the duty 
of the teacher to ascertain the standing of each person 
in his district in all the branches of education, and re- 
port the same to the Town Superintendent. He is re- 
quired to hold at least one session of his school in each 
week, which shall be open for all persons in the district 
who desire to attend He is to make quarterly reports 
to the Town Superintendent of the number of students 
under his charge. It is further made the duty of the 
teacher, if possible, to bring, under his instruction every 
voter in his district, without regard to age or previous edu- 
cation. It is also the duty of the teacher to ascertain and re- 
port to the Town Superintendent the names of all persons 
in his district who have completed the studies required, 
as a qualification for entering the service of the Govern- 
ment as a clerk. Those students who are qualified for 
that position are qualified for any town office, and all 
town officers should be selected from the persons so 
found qualified. 

The nomination of all elective officers should be made 



THE EDUCATIONAL AND PRIZE SYSTEM. 21 

by a plurality vote of all the districts in the town. All 
deputies and subordinates, for whose conduct the principal 
is personally responsible, should be appointed by the 
principal. All jurors and other officers, not elective, 
should be appointed by lot from those who are found 
qualified to enter the civil service as clerks. 

The Town Superintendent is appointed by the County 
Superintendent. It is his duty to appoint the district 
teachers - y to secure a uniform mode of instruction ; to 
visit the several districts and make a personal examina- 
tion of the discipline and progress of the students, and, 
so far as possible, qualify himself to certify personally to 
the correctness of the district teacher's quarterly report. 
It is further his duty to make a quarterly report to 
the County Superintendent, containing a summary state- 
ment of the reports of the district teachers, with the 
whole number of students, and the names and number 
qualified to enter the civil service as clerks, according 
to the rules prescribed by this organization. He is also 
to report to the County Superintendent the names of all 
persons in his town who have received a collegiate and 
classical education. 

The County Superintendent is appointed by the State 
Superintendent. It is the duty of the County Superin- 
tendent to appoint the Town Superintendent ; to secure 
a uniform course of instruction in each town ; to visit 
the several towns in his County, and with the Town 
Superintendent, hold meetings of the teachers and 
students in the town ; to arouse the public interest in 
acquiring a higher standard of popular education and a 
more efficient administration of the service. He is also 
to make a summary report to the State Superintendent 



22 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

of the number and names of all the students in his 
County qualified to enter the civil service as first-class 
clerks, and also of all graduates and classical scholars. 

The State Superintendent is appointed by the National 
Superintendent. It is the duty of the State Superin- 
tendent to appoint all County Superintendents, and see 
that their duties are faithfully executed. He is required 
to make a summary report to the National Superin- 
tendent of the names and number of all students in his 
State who are qualified to enter the civil service as first- 
class clerks, and all in his State who have received a 
collegiate and classical education. 

It is the duty of the National Superintendent to ap- 
point all State Superintendents, and see that all their 
duties are faithfully performed. He is required to make 
a record of the name and residence of each student in 
the United States who is qualified to enter the civil 
service as a first-class clerk, and the name and residence 
of each person who has received a collegiate and classical 
education. 

When a vacancy occurs in any department of the civil 
service, such vacancies should be filled by lot from those 
registered as qualified to enter the civil service as first- 
class clerks. He draws the place as a prize, and is to 
be appointed on probation. Incompetence should always 
be sufficient cause for discharge. 

No young man or young woman should enter the 
civil service as a trade or profession for life. Long con- 
tinuance in such service is not desirable, and is not in 
accordance with the spirit of our institutions. It should 
only be made a stepping-stone to a higher and a more in- 
dependent position. The civil service is the service of 



THE EDUCATIONAL AND PRIZE SYSTEM. 23 

the whole people. It is the property of the whole people. 
Each citizen is under equal obligation to bear its burdens, 
and equally entitled to share its honors and emoluments. 

The tendency to long continuance in office should be 
checked. The rule of rotation in office, whether the 
office be filled by election or by appointment, should be 
insisted on in all cases. No member of the House of 
Representatives should be allowed to hold his office for 
more than three terms of two years each. In each Con- 
gressional District, there are ten crowded out who are 
equally qualified. No Senator in the United States 
Senate should hold his office for more than twelve years. 
In each State, there are ten crowded out who are equally 
qualified. No President of the United States should 
hold that office for more than twelve years. In the 
United States, there are ten crowded out who are equally 
qualified. 

The argument for long continuance in office is gener- 
ally the skill and ability acquired by practice, rendering 
the incumbent more useful in the administration of the 
Government. The argument for rotation in office is 
generally the common right to fill office, which demands 
the widest distribution. The former may be called the 
System of Monopoly and Merit ; the latter, the System 
of Equal Eights. As a general rule, the President 
should not hold that office beyond eight years ; but 
where a citizen has won the proud distinction of " Sage " 
or " Hero " of the century, and is a man whom " the 
world delights to honor," his incumbency may be ex- 
tended to two senatorial terms, or twelve years, 

The wealth of this nation consists largely in the in- 
telligence of the people. Uncounted millions are spent 



24 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

each year in promoting popular education. The rewards 
and the prizes of the civil service must be made to con- 
tribute to the same object. The positions in the civil 
service are offices of honor, trust and profit. Honor and 
office are inseparable. No officer should be allowed to 
disgrace his office. Important duties are entrusted to 
his care. He takes an oath that he will faithfully per- 
form the duties of his office according to the best of his 
ability. He is paid a compensation for his services, 
more than double the amount paid for similar services in 
private life, and he is required to serve less than two- 
thirds the time. A clerk is employed in a store or 
office where his services are required for twelve or thir- 
teen hours a day, at a compensation of $300 to $400 a 
year. He is transferred to the civil service at Washing- 
ton, where he is required to serve only six and one-half 
hours per day, and he is paid for such services from 
$1,000 to $1,500 per year. 

The change from private life to the civil service often 
leads to extravagance and dissipation. The fair rule 
for the Government is to pay for its service the market 
price for such service in private life. .All above is a 
subsidy, a reward, a prize. This surplus must be used 
to promote popular education. We shall hold it up to 
the millions in our training schools as a reward for long 
years of earnest devotion to study, and a complete 
mastery of all the branches of education prescribed by 
our rules for qualification to enter the civil service. 
We shall hold it up to them as a prize which will enable 
them to study all the branches of a classical and scientific 
education. We denounce the plan of distributing these 
prizes as plunder or as spoils, or, in a competitive ex- 



COMPETITIVE EXAMINATION. 25 

amination, to the applicant who shall be marked the 
highest on the list of competition in answering twenty- 
primary school questions, as puerile and unworthy the 
dignity of the civil service. A higher class of learning 
and ability than that shown by the published competitive 
examinations must be demanded. 



COMPETITIVE EXAMINATION. 

The Post Master of the city of New York (Mr. Peai> 
son) was examined before the Committee on Civil Ser- 
vice and Reform in the Senate of the United States, 
He says : I was appointed by the Post Master, Mr. James, 
in 1873, as chairman of a Board of Examiners. I was 
not familiar with the system. Practically, the system 
amounted to very little beyond ascertaining the charac- 
ter of the applicants. From that time we have been 
improving the system. It is difficult to draw a sufficient 
number of applicants to the office. I do not know that 
it is because the salarj 7 is low, but I think not. We 
have succeeded lately in picking up some very bright 
people who are willing to serve for $600, and some 
quite anxious to do so. We find difficulty in obtaining 
carriers at $400. Clerkships range from $600 to $1,440. 

Application for appointment in the Post Office must 
be made to the Post Master. The applicant must state 
that he is a citizen of the United States, his age, his 
occupation, his last employer, and that he presents him- 
self as a candidate for examination and appointment as 

, aud refers to the persons named below, 

(none of whom are his relatives or family connections) 
who are well acquainted with him, and who can furnish 
2 



26 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

full information as to his character and general fitness 
for the position to which he desires to be appointed. 

Signature, 

References : 

, Residence 



"9 

it 

cc 



The Post Master addresses the following note to each 
person referred to : 

Mr. . 

Sir: — Mr. has presented himself as a can- 
didate for examination and appointment as a , 

at this office, and he refers to you as being able to 
furnish full information as to his character and his 
general fitness for that position. 

I shall be obliged if you will write your answer to the 
following questions, and return this sheet to me with 
your signature below in the inclosed envelope. 
Very respectfully, 

, P. M. 

1. How long have you known the abovenamed can- 
didate ? 

2. What is his character ? 

3. Is he industrious ? 

4. Is he or has he been addicted to the use of liquors ? 

5. Has he, to your knowledge, any bad habits what- 
ever ? 

6. Would you, for any reason, hesitate to employ 
him in a position of trust ? 



COMPETITIVE EXAMINATION. 27 

7. Has he, in your judgment, sufficient education to 
qualify him for the position he seeks ? 

8. Is he, so far as you are aware, physically able to 
perform the duties of that position ? 

9. Have you a knowledge of any fact whatsoever 
concerning him, which, if known here, should prevent 
his employment in the public service. 

(Signed,) . 



If the report of the references is satisfactory, a longer 
and more formal application must be made out and 
signed by the applicant to test his handwriting, from 
which the Board of Examiners fix his standing in pen- 
manship. A blank form of such application is sent to 
the candidate. He must also submit to a rigid medical 
examination to ascertain his physical ability to perform 
the duties of the office. 

The whole number of employees in the Post Office is 
about 1,400. There are, besides the carriers, about 830 
employed, at the cost of $850,000. In such a large force 
vacancies frequently occur. These vacancies are filled 
by competitive examinations. The good character of the 
applicant- must be completely established. The questions 
to be answered at the examination, are such as will show 
the relative proficiency of the candidates : First, in Pen- 
manship. Second, in Arithmetic. Third, in Geography; 
Fourth, in English Grammar. Fifth, in the History of 
the United States, and in matters of a public nature to 
the extent that may be required adequately to test 
general capacity or special fitness for the service. 

The character of these questions, in any subject, is so 



28 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

simple that any one failing to reply to them correctly 
should not expect admission to the service. 

There are no questions in reference to the service. 
These questions are technical, to be studied by the appli- 
cant after he is admitted. He is afforded every means 
for obtaining that class of information and all details 
bearing upon the duties he is to perform. 

The examination is a written examination. One sub- 
ject is assigned to each member of the Board of Ex- 
aminers. He prepares a suitable set of questions on 
that subject. They are placed in an envelope and the 
envelope is sealed. The applicants who are admitted to 
the examination are called together in the examination 
room. Each is assigned to a particular desk, which is 
numbered. Each set of questions is placed upon his 
desk, under seal, with the number of his desk. They 
are not to be opened until the subject is reached in the 
examination. In the examination room the questions 
are written on the black-board in view of the applicants, 
who are furnished with blank forms in which their 
answers are required to be written. The answers are 
examined by the Board, and the rating marked on the 
original papers. Erom these papers the lists of the order 
of examination and general average are made. 

On the 12th day of January, 1882, an examination of 
candidates for clerkships was held in the New York Post 
Office. Thirty- one applicants were examined. Twenty- 
one passed and ten failed. Those who passed were 
graded in the " Order of Excellence " from 1 to 21. In 
the " Order of General Average," they were graded from 
96.80 to 72.96. No one standing below 70 passed. 



COMPETITIVE EXAMINATION. 



29 



The following is the list of questions upon which the 
applicants were examined : 



QUESTIONS IN ARITHMETIC. 
Examination of Clerks, January 12, 1882. 

Question A. 

Note in figures two million five hundred and twenty 
thousand, six hundred and seventy-five. 







Question B. 






Add the 


following 


amounts : 
Question C. 


179,635 
521,426 
242,619 
700,271 
396,752 




From 
Substract 




9,096,125 
7,809,534 


Multiply 
By 




Question D. 




9,274 

427 


Divide 

By 




Question E. 




896,272 
476 



QUESTIONS IN GEOGRAPHY. 
Examination of Clerks, January 12, 1882. 



30 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

Question A. 

Name the New England or Eastern States. 

Question B. 

Name the State in which each of the following cities 
are located : Vicksburg, Atlanta, Harrisburg, Mobile, 
Peoria, Milwaukee. 

Question C. 

Name three of the principal mountain ranges in the 
United States, and the three largest rivers. 

Question L>. 
In what direction is Illinois from Ohio. 

Question E. 
Name two large cities in France, and two in Germany. 

QUESTIONS IN GRAMMAE. 

Examination of Clerks, January 12, 1882. 

Question A. 
What is a noun ? 

Question B. 

Name separately the nouns, adjectives and verbs in 
the following sentence: "William has a better house 
than John, but its location is not so good." 

Question C. 
What is meant by parsing a sentence ? 

Question D. 
Copy the following sentences, correcting such errors 
as you may observe in them : 



COMPETITIVE EXAMINATION". 31 

1. Each of those men are coming. 

2. Which of us shall go, you or me ? 

3. Has Joseph and Thomas gone to Brooklyn ? 

4. That ship sails beautiful. 

QUESTIONS IN HISTORY. 
Examination of Clerks, January 12, 1882. 

Question A. 
How many of the present United States were British 
Colonies at the beginning of the Revolutionary War ? 
Name three or four of them. 

Question B. 

What American General was killed at the battle of 
Bunker Hill ? 

Question C. 

Name six or more Presidents of the United States 
who held that office before 1870. 

Question D. 

What States did Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun 
represent in the Senate of the United States ? 

Question E. 

Name two or more American Generals who took part 
in the war between the United States and Mexico. 

Question F. 

Name four or more of the most important battles of 
the late rebellion. 

This examination seems more like a farce than a 
reality. Four wise men have assembled in the exam- 



32 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. , 

ination room in the Post Office in the metropolitan city 
of the nation. They organize as a Board of Examiners. 
In an adjoining room are assembled thirty-one applicants 
for clerkships. They are summoned before this august 
Board. They enter the room with trembling steps and 
throbbing heart. A prize is to be won or lost, carrying 
with it honor or disgrace. Each applicant is numbered. 
As he enters he is shown to the desk bearing his number. 
When the applicants are assembled, they are addressed 
by the chairman of the Board. They are informed that 
it is of the highest importance to the civil service that 
all clerkships in the Post Office should be filled with 
men of great learning and ability. We shall test your 
learning and ability by asking you five questions in each 
of four branches of common school education. We have 
given you five questions in the science of numbers. We 
ask you to change written numbers into figures. By 
this question we test your knowledge of notation and 
numeration. We then ask one question in each of the 
four simple rules of Arithmetic, viz : Addition, Sub- . 
traction, Multiplication and Division. We have asked, 
in this great science, only such questions as a scholar 
can learn in a single week in our primary schools. It 
will be better for you to say nothing of this examination 
out of the examination room, or the people will say it is 
all a farce. All our questions are in the simple rules. 
We have asked no questions in the Compound Rules or 
in Decimal Fractions, or in Vulgar Fractions, or Pro- 
portion or Interest or Discount, or Square Boot or Cube 
Boot. We have not even asked you to give a definition 
of Arithmetic. 

In Geography, the questions are quite as simple. You 



LOT AND BALLOT. 33 

will be able to name the New England States and tell 
us in what City and State this Post Office is located. 
In grammar, you will be able to answer the question, 
What is a noun ? and to tell us whether the name of 
our Post Master is a common or proper noun. In the 
great subject of history, you will be able, to name three 
of the thirteen original colonies, and to tell where the 
battle of Bunker Hill was fought, and what American 
General was killed in that battle. You will also be able 
to tell what States Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun 
represented in the Senate, of the United States. We 
have propounded twenty questions. If you miss more 
than six, you cannot pass. You will now open the en- 
velopes on your desks, and write your answers to the 
questions found therein. We shall mark each list and 
make out your general average and your rank, in the 
order of examination from your written answers. 

You will now proceed to your task, remembering that 
the eyes of this great nation are upon you. 

LOT AND BALLOT. 

The transaction of business in our Courts is one of 
the most important branches of the civil service. Issues 
of fact are constantly arising, involving the property, 
the character, and even the life of a citizen. How shall 
these issues be decided ? They must be decided by the 
unanimous verdict of twelve jurors duly qualified, sum- 
moned, empaneled and sworn to render a true verdict 
in the issue joined between the parties. These jurors 
are to be selected by lot from those previously found 
legally qualified to perform the duties of jurors. The 
2* 



34 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

right of trial by a jury of twelve men, selected by lot 
from all who are legally qualified to perform the duties 
of jurors, is one of the most valuable rights secured to 
us by our constitution and laws. It is the great bul- 
wark of civil liberty. 

Where many are subject to the same duty and but 
one can perform it, the one to perform it can only be 
determined by lot ; and where many are entitled to the 
same prize and but one can receive it, the one to receive 
it can only be determined by lot. When there are ten 
candidates equally qualified and equally entitled to fill 
an office in the civil service, and one only can be selected, 
that selection should be by lot. 

When several officers are to be elected to the same 
office under a new Constitution, and they are to hold 
office for different periods of time, the period for which 
each shall hold this office is determined by lot. In the 
State of New York, under a former Constitution, thirty- 
two Judges of the Supreme Court of the State were 
elected. Eight were to hold the office for only two 
years ; eight were to hold the office for four years ; eight 
were to hold the office for six years, and eight were to 
hold the office for eight years. All had an equal claim 
to eight years, but only eight out of thirty-two could 
hold the office for eight years. The time that each 
should hold was fixed by lot. Here the action of the 
Lot and the Ballot combined to confer the office and fix 
the time. The plan of selection by lot may be advan- 
tageously extended in the civil service. 

The principal question discussed in this agitation for 
civil service reform is the manner of making appoint- 
ment to office. It is impossible for the President to 



LOT AND BALLOT. 35 

know, personally, the character and qualifications of all 
the officers of the Government who act by and under his 
authority. He is aided by the advice and counsel of the 
members of his Cabinet in the selection of the vast 
army of officers by whom the business of the Govern- 
ment is transacted. All act by and under his authority. 
The President holds responsible to him each member of 
his Cabinet in his particular department for the trans- 
action of the business of that department. Each Secre- 
tary is to investigate according to the best of his ability, 
and advise the President according to his best judgment, 
in transacting the business of his department. 

The President almost invariably acts in accordance 
with the advice of the Secretary in that Department. It 
is the theory of the Government of Great Britain, that 
the King can do no wrong : that if a wrong is committed, 
the King is not responsible for that wrong, but the 
minister who investigated the subject and advised the 
King to the wrong act. As the general rule, we may 
apply this doctrine in this country. If the President 
makes an improper appointment in any of the depart- 
ments, the presumption is that he makes the appointment 
upon the recommendation and advice of the Secretary of 
that department. During the administration of Presi- 
dent Grant, the members of the Cabinet agreed among 
themselves that they would not interfere with the trans- 
action of any other department, even to the extent of 
recommending any person to an appointment ; that 
each would hold himself personally responsible for the 
character, ability and conduct of appointees in his own 
department. This plan contributed largely to the har- 
mony of the Cabinet and the success of the administration. 



36 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

The President should hold each Secretary responsible 
for the conduct of all the officers in his department. 
Each Secretary should hold his next subordinate officer 
responsible for all the subordinate officers in that par- 
ticular line of office. The President should hold the 
Secretary of the Treasury responsible for his own good 
conduct and the good conduct of all appointees in the 
Treasury Department. The Secretary of the Treasury 
should hold the Collectors responsible for the ability and 
fidelity of all officers under his control. 

The power of appointment should not be separated 
from the responsibility for the good conduct of the officer 
appointed. Any law which attempts to take the power 
or responsibility of civil service appointments from the 
executive branch of this Government, and to place it in 
the hands of an irresponsible Board of Commissioners 
of known politicians from both parties, is clearly uncon- 
stitutional, and will be declared null and void by the 
Supreme Court of the United States. 

The service performed in transacting the business of 
governing the people is the civil service. The business 
of governing the people is called government. The 
power to establish and maintain government is inherent 
in the people. It is transferred by ballot from the 
people to agents, who act for the people in transacting 
the business of the Government. These agents are 
called the officers of the Government. The positions 
they hold are called offices. These offices are filled 
either by the direct election by the people or by lot, or 
they are filled by the appointment of some other officer 
elected by the people. 

Every candidate for election or applicant for appoint- 



LOT AND BALLOT. 37 

ment, on consenting to the use of his name, guarantees 
that he possesses a character that will not disgrace the 
office, and the learning and ability to perform the duties 
of the office in a workmanlike manner. If elected or 
appointed, he swears that he will perform the duties of 
his office to the best of his ability. He becomes the 
servant and agent of the people — the trustee of an ex- 
press trust, bound to exercise the highest degree of skill, 
care and diligence in the performance of the duties of 
his office, and holds himself responsible to the people 
for his honesty, skill and fidelity. By our theory of 
government, the most worthy men are to be placed in 
office, and they hold their offices by the will of the 
majority or plurality of the people expressed at the 
ballot box. Let us see how far facts sustain this theory. 
The people are divided into two great political parties. 
Each party has a committee in every town in the County, 
and in every ward in every city. Each party has also 
its County, its State and its National committees. An 
election is soon to take place. Candidates are to be 
selected by each party. How shall they be selected ? 
A primary election in each party is to be held in each 
town or ward. The town or ward committees meet in 
caucus and determine what candidates they will support 
for the several offices and for delegates to County, Con- 
gressional or State conventions. The town committee 
calls a party primary meeting in the town. They post 
a few notices where they are seldom, if ever, read. The 
day arrives. The meeting is called to order. Often, at 
such meetings, only three or four are present. One is 
made Chairman, one Secretary, and the third makes the 
nominations. A ticket is made out for town officers and 



38 CIVTL SERVICE REFORM. 

delegates are appointed to County, Congressional and 
State conventions. A party ticket is thus nominated and 
placed before the people. This is called u the regular 
ticket." The party is expected to ratify it at the polls. 

The day of election approaches. The town is carefully 
canvassed by each party. A list of the voters in the 
town is made out. Each voter is marked Repub., Dem., 
Doubtful or Purchasable. The Doubtful are beseiged 
by both parties. Money is raised by both parties to buy 
the Purchasable. . Sums from $5 to $50 are paid for a 
single vote. The party that can furnish the most money 
wins. In one small town in Maine containing 300 
voters, 60 were marked Purchasable at the last election. 
The candidate must consent to be "bled at every pore," 
or be defeated. He pledges his patronage, he barters 
his independence, he lavishly spends his money for 
votes, and is successful. He enters the Executive De- 
partment, or goes upon the Bench, or enters the Legis- 
lative Hall. He has purchased his position. He has 
bribed a voter. He has loosened the keystone of the 
arch on which our Republic rests. He is approached 
with a bribe. He forgets his oath, his honor, his country 
and his God, and accepts the bribe. As a watchman to 
guard the people in their midnight repose, he allows the 
burglar to enter, and shares his plunder, or becomes him- 
self the robber. " Who shall watch the watchman ? " 

The use of money and the promise of patronage to 
induce a voter to vote otherwise than he would vote 
without the payment of money, or the promise of patron- 
age, are equally bribery. The right to protect one's own 
life, liberty and property, by his own right arm, or to 
transfer that right to his trustee or agent by his own 



BRANCHES TAUGHT IN THE TRAINING SCHOOLS. 39 

ballot, is the most sacred right the Creator has bestowed 
upon any man. That right is inalienable, because no 
equivalent can be paid for it. 



BRANCHES TAUGHT IN THE TRAINING SCHOOLS. 

The branches to be taught in the Training Schools are 
nearly the same as those upon which candidates for 
admission, as cadets, to the Military Academy at West 
Point, or to the Naval Academy at Annapolis, are re- 
quired to be examined. 

The number of cadets allowed at each of these National 
Schools is one for each member and delegate of the 
House of Representatives, one for the District of 
Columbia, and ten are appointed at large. The nomina- 
tion of a candidate is made by each member or delegate 
from the residents of his district or territory. 

The age for the admission of cadets to the Military 
Academy is between seventeen and twenty-two years. 
In the Naval Academy, the age must be over fourteen 
and less than eighteen. His application must be ac- 
companied by satisfactory testimonials of good moral 
character. Candidates must submit to a thorough ex- 
amination before a Medical Board, and must be free from 
deformity, disease or infirmity which may render them 
unfit for service. 

The candidate must pass a satisfactory examination 
before the Academic Board in Reading, Writing, Spell- 
ing, Arithmetic, Geography, English Grammar, History 
and Algebra. 



40 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 



READING. 



The first subject that demands attention is reading. 
It is impossible to make advancement in the study of 
any of the arts and sciences without the ability to read 
the language correctly and fluently. It is important 
that the reader clearly perceives the ideas and enters 
into the feelings of the author whose sentiments he at- 
tempts to repeat. It is necessary, to become a good 
reader, to understand precisely the meaning of the writer. 

In reading to others, the reader should make himself 
distinctly heard by all to whom he reads. He must fill 
the space occupied by the company. Every person has 
three pitches of voice : the high, the middle and the 
low one. The high is that which he uses in calling 
aloud to some person at a distance ; the low, when he 
approaches to a whisper. The middle is that which he 
employs in common conversation, and which he should 
generally use in reading to others. He will always be 
able to give most force of sound to that pitch of voice 
to which he is in conversation accustomed. He should 
give the voice full strength and swell of sound in read- 
ing, but always pitch it on his ordinary speaking key. 
It is a useful rule, as Lindley Murray says, in order to 
be well heard, to cast our eye on some of the most dis- 
tant persons in the company, and consider ourselves as 
reading to them. 

The next point in reading that demands attention is 
distinctness of articulation. The reader must give every 
sound which he utters its due proportion, and make 
every syllable and even every letter in the word dis- 
tinctly heard. Hence it is absolutely necessary that a 
good reader should be perfectly familiar with all the 



BRANCHES TAUGHT IN THE TRAINING SCHOOLS. 41 

elementary sounds of the language. If the reader is 
imperfect in these elementary sounds, he should under- 
stand that he can never become a good reader until he 
can fully articulate eyery sound of the language. A 
good reader should not pronounce his words too rapidly, 
but with a proper degree of slowness and with clear ar- 
ticulation. Such a pronunciation gives weight and dig- 
nity to the subject. The reader must also give to every 
word which he utters that sound which the best usage 
appropriates to it. 

In the English language, every word that consists of 
more syllables than one has one accented syllable. It 
is an important rule to give every word just the same 
accent in reading as in common conversation. To 
become a correct reader, it is necessary to place a stronger 
and fuller sound of the voice on some word in the 
sentence to distinguish it from the others. On the 
right management of emphasis depends the life of pro- 
nunciation. The following short sentence admits of 
four distinct meanings, each of which is ascertained by 
the emphasis only : " Do you ride to town to-day " ? 

WRITING. 

A good handwriting can only be acquired by careful, 
persevering practice. A plain, simple form should be 
adopted for the construction of every letter, and the 
form, when adopted, should be rigidly adhered to. All 
unnecessary flourishing or attempt at ornamentation 
should be avoided. Plainness, accuracy and rapidity of 
execution are absolutely necessary. The rules for the 
use of capital letters must be caref ully studied ; not only 



42 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

understood, but committed to memory. The candidate, 
on entering the examination room, is required to leave 
all books outside. The only rules he can use there are 
those he has committed to memory. He is required to 
copy from dictation selections of prose and poetry, as 
they are read to him. In this manner, the examiners 
test the handwriting, the punctuation, the use of capital 
letters and the spelling of words. 

SPELLING. 

The orthography of our language is attended with 
some uncertainty and perplexity, but to be ignorant of 
the spelling of those words which are uniformly spelled 
in the same manner, and frequently used, is without 
excuse. A set of definite rules for spelling is within 
the reach of every scholar. These rules should be com- 
mitted to memory by every student of the English 
language. Writing from dictation will test the knowl- 
edge of the candidate in penmanship, punctuation, the 
use of capitals and the spelling of words. Some original 
letters on business or friendship should be required, as 
a further test, and a test in composition. 

ARITHMETIC. 

The examination in this science is very thorough and 
critical. It must be remembered that no book will be 
allowed in the examination room. It will therefore 
be necessary for the applicant to have every definition 
and every table and every rule in his book perfectly 
committed to memor}'. 

1. He must be able to explain the manner of writing 



BRANCHES TAUGHT IN THE TRAINING SCHOOLS. 43 

and reading numbers — entire, fractional, compound or 
denominate. He may be asked to express in figures 
one million and one-millionth. 

2. He must be able to perform with facility and 
accuracy the various operations of addition, subtraction, 
multiplication and division of whole numbers, abstract 
and compound, or denominate numbers, giving the rule 
for each operation, with its reasons, and also for the 
different methods of proving the accuracy of the work. 

3. He must explain the meaning of reduction, its 
different kinds, its application to denominate numbers 
in reducing them from a higher to a lower denomination 
and the reverse, and to equivalent decimals ; to give the 
rules for each case, with its reasons, and to apply readily 
these rules to practical examples of each kind. 

4. He must be able to explain the nature of prime 
numbers, and factors of a number ; of a common divisor 
of two or more numbers, particularly of their greatest 
common divisor, with its use, and to give the rule, with 
its reasons for obtaining it; also the meaning of a com- 
mon multiple of several numbers, particularly of their 
least common multiple, with its use, and to give the rule 
with its reason for obtaining it, and to apply each of 
these rules to examples. 

5. He must be able to explain the nature of fractions, 
common, or vulgar, and decimal ; to define the various 
kinds of fractions, with the distinguishing properties of 
each ; to give all the rules for their reduction, particu- 
larly from mixed to improper, and the reverse, from 
compound or complex to simple, to their lowest terms, 
to a common denominator, from common to decimals, 
and the reverse ; for their addition, substraction, multi- 



44 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

plication and division, with the reasons for each change 
of rule, and to apply each rule to examples. 

6. To define the terms, ratio and proportion, to give 
the properties of proportion and the rules, and their 
reasons for stating and solving questions in both simple 
and compound proportion, or single and double rule of 
three, and to apply these rules to examples. 

7. The candidates must not only know the principles 
and rules referred to above, but they are required to 
possess such a thorough understanding of all the funda- 
mental operations of arithmetic, as will enable them to 
combine the various principles in the solution of any 
complex problem which can be solved by the methods 
of arithmetic ; in other words, they must possess such a 
complete knowledge of arithmetic, as will enable them 
to take up at once the higher branches of mathematics 
without the further study of arithmetic. 

8. It is to be understood that the examination in 
these branches may be either written or oral, or partly 
written and partly oral ; that the definitions and rules 
must be given fully and accurately, and that the work 
of all examples, whether upon the blackboard, slate or 
paper, must be written plainly and in full, and in such 
a manner as to show clearly the mode of solution. 

ENGLISH GRAMMAR. 

In English Grammar, candidates must exhibit a famil- 
iarity with all the parts of speech, and the rules in 
relation thereto; must be able to parse any ordinary 
sentence given to them, and, generally, must understand 
those portions of the subject usually taught and com- 



BRANCHES TAUGHT IN THE TRAINING SCHOOLS. 45 

prehended under the heads of Orthography, Etymology, 
Syntax and Prosody. 

The examination will be either written or oral, or 
partly written and partly oral. The questions will usually 
be arranged in three divisions. 

The first division will contain questions somewhat 
like these : Name all the different kinds of verbs, and 
give examples of each. What is a pronoun ? Write a 
short sentence using a personal, a relative and an inter- 
rogative pronoun, and specify each. 

The second division will contain one or more sentences 
to be parsed, e. g., " Many would gladly exchange their 
honors for that more quiet and humble station with 
which thou art now dissatisfied." Such a sentence 
must be parsed fully, giving the parts of speech and 
kind, case, voice, mood, tense, number, person, degree of 
comparison, &c, as the case may be, of each word and 
its relation to the other words, thus : " Many " : 
adjective [or indefinite adjective pronoun], positive de- 
gree, third person, plural number, nominative case, 
agrees with persons understood (or subject of would ex- 
change), 

"Exchange": Verb, regular, transitive, active, po- 
tential mood, past tense, third person, plural number, 
agrees with persons understood (or many) for its sub- 
ject. 

COMPOSITION. 

The third division will contain a large number of in- 
correct sentences to be corrected, thus: To these pre- 
cepts are subjoined a "copious selection of rules." 
"Which of the two is the eldest?" Among these, 



46 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

correct sentences will sometimes be introduced, to more 
thoroughly test the knowledge of the candidate. 

Since the school grammars used in the different parts 
of the country vary among themselves in their treatment 
of certain words, an answer endorsed by any grammar 
of good repute will be accepted. Thus, in parsing the 
word "many" above, it may be called an indefinite 
adjective, pronoun, or an adjective agreeing with persons 
understood. 

GEOGRAPHY. 

Candidates will be required to pass a satisfactory ex- 
amination, written or oral, or both, in Descriptive Geog- 
raphy, particularly of our own country. To give the 
candidate a clear idea of what is required, the following 
synopsis is added as a type of the character and extent 
of the examination : 

1. Definition of all the natural divisions of the earth's 
surface, such as zones; those relating to latitude and 
longitude, &c, &c, are to be clearly and concisely 
given. 

2. The Eastern and Western Hemispheres : 

Their grand divisions, what large bodies of water 
partly or wholly surround them ; their oceans and their 
locations. 

The mountains, their locations, directions and extent; 
the capes, from what parts do they project and into what 
waters. 

The peninsulas, their locations, and by what waters 
are they embraced. 



BRANCHES TAUGHT IN THE TRAINING SCHOOLS. 47 

The parts connected by an isthmus, its name and 
location. 

The islands, their locations and surrounding waters. 

The seas, gulfs and bays, the coasts they indent, and 
to what other waters are they subordinate. 

The straits, the lands they separate and the waters 
they connect. 

The rivers, their sources, directions of flow, and the 
waters into which they empty. 

The lakes, their locations and extent. 

3. The sub-divisions of the grand divisions : 

Their names, locations, boundaries and capitals ; gen- 
eral questions of the same character as indicated in the 
second section, made applicable to each of the countries 
of each of the grand divisions. 

4. The United States : 

The knowledge under this head cannot be too full or 
specific. The candidate should be thoroughly informed 
as to its general features, location, configuration and 
boundaries [both with respect to neighboring countries, 
and latitude and longitude] ; its adjacent oceans, seas, 
bays, gulfs, sounds, straits and islands ; its mountain 
ranges, their location and extent; the source, direction, 
and termination of the important rivers, and their prin- 
cipal tributaries; the lakes, and, in short, every geo- 
graphical feature of the country as indicated above. 
The location and termination of important railroad lines 
and other means of communication, from one part of the 
country to another, should not be omitted. 

The States and Territories are to be accurately located 



48 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

with regard to each other, by their boundaries, and as 
to their order on the Atlantic coast, on the Gulf of 
Mexico, on the Pacific coast, on the Northern frontier, 
and on the Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio rivers. 

The boundary and other rivers of each State, as well 
as all other prominent geographical features, should be 
known. 

The names and locations of their capitals, and other 
important cities and town, are likewise to be known. 

In short, the knowledge should be so complete that a 
clear mental picture of the whole or any part of the 
United States should be impressed on the mind of the 
candidate. 



The candidate should make himself familiar with so 
much of the History of the United States as is con- 
tained in the ordinary school Histories. The examin- 
ation may be written or oral, or part written and part 
oral, and will usually consist of a series of questions 
similar to the following : 

1. Name the earliest European settlements within 
the present limits of the United States, when, where and 
by whom made. When did the settlements made by 
other nations than the English come under the Dominion 
of Great Britain and of the United States ? 

2. What was the difference between the Royal, the 
Charter and the Proprietary colonies ? How many 
colonies were there originally in Massachusetts and 
Connecticut ? When were they united ? How many 
in Pennsylvania ? When were they separated ? 



BRANCHES TAUGHT IN THE TRAINING SCHOOLS. 49 

3. In what wars were the colonies engaged before the 
Revolution ? What were the principal events and re- 
sults of those of King William, Queen Anne, King 
George, and the French and Indian ? 

4. What were the remote and the immediate causes 
of the American Revolution ? Explain the Navigation 
Act, The Stamp Act, Writ of assistance. When did 
the w r ar of the Revolution properly begin ? When, 
where and how did it end? Give the particulars of 
Arnold's treason. Who were the most prominent Gen- 
erals in this war ? Name the most important battles 

1 and their results. 

5. The Constitution of the United States — why and 
when was it formed ? When was it adopted ? 

6. Give the names of the Presidents of the United 
States in their order. Give the leading events of the 
administration of each : for example, that of 

Washington, e. g. — Indian war : trouble with France : 
Jay's treaty : the whiskey rebellion, &c. 

Jefferson — War with Tripoli : purchase of Louisiana : 
the embargo, &c. 

Madison — War of 1812 : its causes : the principal 
battles on land and sea : peculiarity of its last battle : 
when ended, &c. 

Monroe — Indian war : cession of Florida : Missouri 
compromise, &c. 

Jackson — Black Hawk and Seminole wars : the 
United States Bank : nullification, &c. 

Polk — The Mexican war : its causes : principal battles : 
result, &c. 

Buchanan — Civil war : how commenced, &c. 
3 



50 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

Lincoln — Principal battles of that war: its results, 
social and political, &c. 

ALGEBRA. 

The examination in Algebra will be elementary in 
character, and will be limited to questions and problems 
upon the fundamental rules, factoring, algebraic frac- 
tions and simple equations of one or more unknown 
quantities. 

BOOK-KEEPING. 

The elementary rules in Book-keeping, both by single 
and double entry, must be understood. 

GOVERNMENT OP THE UNITED STATES. 

The student will be required to give the history of 
the establishment of the original colonies, with their 
powers of government, and in what manner they became 
clothed with those powers : how those governments re- 
semble our present territorial governments : the origin 
of the title " United States of America " : the State 
governments : the National government : powers and 
duties of each : three departments of each grade : powers 
and duties of each department: our National govern- 
ment resembles the government of Great Britain in 
what ? in what does it differ ? 

What are the principal sources of our law ? 

ABRIDGED STATEMENT OF DORMAN B. EATON, BEFORE 

THE COMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERVICE AND 

RETRENCHMENT, FEB. 4, 1882. 

The Pendleton Bill assumes that the power of appoint- 
ment to the executive service is vested in the President, 



STATEMENT OF DORMAN B. EATON. 51 

and that it is neither legal nor desirable to attempt to 
limit that authority, but simply to provide for its exer- 
cise in the manner most beneficial to the public service. 
The first section of the Bill provides for the appointment 
of three Commissioners by the President. In the second 
section, we have a declaration of the duties of the Com- 
missioners. You must have, in your conditions of ex- 
amining at all, certain restrictions ; otherwise you would 
have such a mass of individuals coming in, that your 
examinations would be oversloughed. Civil service 
rules, competitive examinations, or any other, are not 
ends in themselves ; they do not aim to test men's liter- 
ary qualifications ; they do not terminate in getting men 
who know a great tleal, who have a great deal of 
accumulated information. The rules and regulations 
are to be made and everj'thing is to be done subject 
to the President's approval. He can at any time change 
the rules. A man comes in as Secretary of the Treasury. 
There are more than 3,000 clerks in the Treasury Depart- 
ment. The Secretary is new to the business. He does 
not know the duties of the department, and it is im- 
possible for him to know them. 

I think there is need of a Commission to make the 
system harmonious and consistent. The marking and 
grading of the examinations on the basis of the examin- 
ation papers should be uniform and just, and that can 
be secured only by a supervising Commission. I am 
quite aware that examinations have taken place in the 
City of ISTew York, in the Custom House, and also in the 
Post Office, where they have been conducted by isolated 
Boards, without the public knowing that there has been 
any supervision, and, in fact, without much supervision. 



52 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

I have in my hand a letter dated the 24th of this month, 
from Mr. Burt, the Naval Officer at New York. He 
favors a supervising board. He says, without such pro- 
tection nothing could be easier than to debauch and 
prostitute the entire system and to bring it into dis- 
credit. By the Law of 1871, the President was author- 
ized to establish rules and regulations for admission to 
the civil service. There was nothing in the act provid- 
ing for competitive examinations. There was no reference 
to the appointment of a Commission, but President 
Grant and his cabinet considered the subject, and, look- 
ing especially to the English experience and its results, 
became satisfied that competitive examinations were the 
most effective and that a Commission was necessary for 
their supervision. Such a Commission was appointed, 
and it exists to this time, and I have the honor, or mis- 
fortune, as the case may be, to be its chairman. The 
Commission went on and did considerable work. The 
results are set forth in the report to the President of 
April 15, 1874. President Grant sent in that report to 
Congress. He asked for an appropriation. In his 
annual message following that, were similar recommend- 
ations. In a third message, referring to the subject, he 
declares it was with " mortification" to himself, and he 
doubted not to those connected with the Commission, 
that the refusal of Congress to make any appropriation, 
rendered it, in his opinion, necessary to suspend the 
work of the Commission. Congress not only refused the 
appropriation, but there was no discussion on the sub- 
ject. The work of the Commission was allowed to pass 
out of activity in silence. The President thought it 
necessary to apply competitive examinations and to 



STATEMENT OF DOEMAN B. EATON. 53 

establish a Commission. Congress had never committed 
itself to that mode of dealing with the subject. They 
were at liberty to say that these rules were impracticable. 
Congress made an appropriation which covered two 
years, during which the President accomplished much. 
He appealed to Congress in 1874, presenting the evidence 
of the good work he had done, and asking for an additional 
appropriation that he might continue it. Congress re- 
fused. He renewed the recommendation twice and Con- 
gress ignored it. That made the Executive too weak to 
stand up against the immense influence that will at all 
times be brought against any movement of this sort. 
The result was the failure to carry on the work and the 
practical suppression of these competitive examinations 
by the President. 

When President Hayes came in, he did not revive the 
work of the Commission in any considerable sense, but 
he asked for an appropriation in his first message to 
enable him to do so, and I believe in every subse- 
quent message. Yet no action was taken by Congress 
upon his recommendation. I do not need to state 
the general results in New York. I do not mean to say 
that there is in either office there an entire absence of 
either fraud or incompetency or extravagance. I am 
very far from thinking that competitive methods are 
going to achieve entire purity or fidelity in administra- 
tion, or relieve us from the necessity of constant vigil- 
ance. 

The several declarations of principles are : 

1. Competitive' examinations. 

2. Selection from those graded highest. 

3. Original entrance at the lowest grade. 



54 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

4. A period of probation. 

5. Promotion on the basis of merit and competition. 

6. No obligation to pay political assessments. 

7. Freedom from political coercion. 

8. Non-competitive examinations in all proper cases. 

9. Appointments and rejections on probation re- 
corded. 

Promotion on the basis of merit and competition I 
deem to be a very important matter. In the English 
service, the question upon what basis promotion should 
be made has been one of great observation and study. 
If you provide that no person shall rise in the service 
except on the basis of competition alone, you largely 
take from the superior officer the authority to make 
selections based on his own knowledge of the special 
administrative ability of those in his own bureau. 

I have here a letter which I have just received from 
Mr. Comstock, the head of the examining board at New 
York city for the custom house and the naval office. 
He and his fellow members are pressed by all sorts of 
selfish people to violate the rules. They are pressed by 
the local politicians, the Congressmen from the States, 
and others wanting patronage. Perhaps the Congress- 
men do not alwa} r s really want the patronage, but they 
are pressed to get it by their political supporters, and 
they are pressed by all sorts of people, who want to get 
their sons, cousins and dependents into places. The 
board have to stand up strongly against it. They de- 
sire the' support of a central commission. I may be 
pardoned for stating that, as chairman of the Commis- 
sion, I have had occasion to resist applications by the 
hundreds that I would aid in procuring appointments. 



STATEMENT OF DOKMAN B. EATON. 55 

The penal provisions in this Act will prevent any abuse 
of this nature. The Pendleton Bill says, in so many 
words, that if anybody being an Examiner or Commis- 
sioner shall use his influence or practice any deception, 
&c, to prevent any person from having his fair, just 
and public opportunity to be examined, then he shall be 
guilty of a criminal offence, and shall be punished by 
fine not exceeding $1,000, or imprisonment not ex- 
ceeding one year, or by both such fine and imprison- 
ment. 

As to opening the door to the miscellaneous examina- 
tion of everybody who chooses to come there, it is 
absolutely impossible. Such has been the necessity of 
limiting it by proper tests as to & prima facie fitness to 
compete, that the English Government, for the last six 
years, have conducted preliminary examinations to see 
who should compete — to weed out the hopeless dunces. 

It is competent for Congress to declare the general 
principles that it wishes to have carried out in the de- 
partments, but how far they should be carried out, and 
how they should be carried out, it seems to me, is a 
matter to be left to executive consideration. If there is 
any way by which Congress thinks it can compel the 
President to go further than he approves, it will be for 
Congress to try to have that done. If the President 
should say, " I will do nothing about it, I will not pro- 
vide any such rules, I am totally opposed to competition 
in any form," I do not know of any way in which Con- 
gress could coerce him. 

You must bear in mind there is no definition of the 
term civil service ; and when you speak about civil 
service with no restrictions, I think it covers the whole 



56 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

civil administration of the United States. You have in 
the Post Office in New York, 700 clerks. Those who 
serve under a Post Master are not appointed, they are 
employed. You have in the Custom House, 1,000 clerks. 
You wish to have a promotion, and it would be most in- 
convenient and disastrous to the business of the office to 
permit all persons in it to compete for every vacancy. 
We must have a supervising board to devise rules for 
such cases, or leave it in the frail hands of those isolated 
boards, who are nothing but subordinates in the offices 
where the labor is to be done without compensation — 
and standing on an equality with their fellow clerks — 
the boards will have no moral weight, they will have no 
adequate authority. 

In Great Britain, the supervising board is independent, 
even of the Prime Minister. As the matter now stands, 
if the son of a Bishop or Duke wishes to enter the public 
service, in any of the branches to which competition ap- 
plies, he must go through precisely the same form as the 
son of the humblest sailor or coal heaver, and win his 
way by superior capacity, or fail. At the very outset of 
the work of the Commission, Lord Palmerston, as Prime 
Minister, sent to the Commission to have the papers of 
a certain person sent to him for inspection, in order that 
he might be able to exert his influence to get him pushed 
forward. The Commission met and made a stand, de- 
claring that it would not be done, and that if the Prime 
Minister wished to see them he should come up to the 
office as any other man, and look at them ; and he had 
to go there or give it up, and he gave it up. 



STATEMENT OF SILAS W. BURT. 57 

ABRIDGED STATEMENT OP SILAS W. BURT, NAVAL OF- 
FICER OF THE PORT OF NEW YORK, BEFORE THE 
COMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERVICE AND RE- 
TRENCHMENT, FEB. 11, 1882. 

I am the naval officer of the Port of New York. I 
entered the customs service at the Port of ~New York, 
in April, 1869, just after General Grant's election. The 
customs service at New York had fallen into a lower 
condition than ever before. Mr. Smythe, who had been 
Collector, appointed by President Johnson, had attempted 
to use the customs service to aid that part of the Re- 
publican party interested in the success of Mr. Johnson's 
administration. He did not hesitate to use the whole 
power of his patronage to accomplish that end. During 
the three years of his incumbency, he made 830 removals 
out of a total of 903 employed by him. Not only was 
the Collector recognized as the leader in all partisan 
matters in the State, but that officer, as well as the naval 
officer and surveyor, enjoyed large official perquisites in 
addition to their salaries. These perquisites amounted 
sometimes in a single year to eight times as much as 
their salaries for the same period. These officers were 
naturally induced to pay a large part of their attention 
to matters connected with these great emoluments, and 
this, together with their partisan labors, absorbed most 
of their time, to the exclusion of their official duties. The 
naval officer was a co-partner with the Collector in the 
large sums received from seizures and forfeitures. The 
Surveyor had also the same large personal interest to 
distract him from his official functions. Thus the 
general conduct of business was left to subordinates. 
The good clerks in the service were discouraged by the 
3* 



58 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

promotion over their heads of incompetent and ignorant 
men. These unskilled and incapable appointees were 
frequently placed in important positions demanding ex- 
perienced ability, and their work, if done at all, fell upon 
some other clerk. There were many sinecurists whose 
presence or absence from the office or wharf was im- 
material, since they were unable or unwilling to render 
service. 

In the Custom House and on the wharves, it was 
necessary for the merchant to pay a gratuity or fee to 
most of the clerks and officers with whom he dealt. 
Specious obstacles confronted him if he refused, and, as 
complaint brought no remedy, the easiest way was to 
pay the exaction. These clerks and officers who received 
them, frequently collected in this way sums double the 
amount of their salaries from the goverment for a like 
period. The avenues to bribery were open wide by these 
practices, and the lapse from a gratuity to a bribe was 
easy. Many shifted their fealty from the government 
they professed to serve to the merchants or brokers who 
paid them a larger compensation. 

What was at first ostensibly paid, as for alleged over- 
work, was imperceptibly but surely advanced to a bribe 
for wrong doing. There were weighers and gaugers 
bribed to make short returns of quantities ; damage ap- 
praisers to certify a larger per centage of damage than 
existed ; samplers to return a lower grade of quality for 
assessment of duties, by which the revenue was robbed 
for the joint benefit of the unworthy official and his 
tempter and co-conspirators. 

The inspectors detailed to steamers received from the 
stewards of these vessels a regular allowance of liquors. 



STATEMENT OF SILAS W. BURT. 59 

These supplies the inspector could consume or smuggle 
on shore. If he had the least tendency towards in- 
temperance, the temptations were freely proffered, and 
many weak men were ruined by these facilities. The 
bribery of inspectors to pass the baggage of travelers was 
a recognized public scandal. The seizures of smuggled 
and undervalued goods engendered new devices. The 
net proceeds of these seizures were divided thus : One- 
quarter to the informer or seizing officer, one-quarter 
divided equally among the three principal officers, and 
one-half to the United States. These seizure officers 
actually encouraged malpractices, and were in collusion 
with smugglers, who were permitted to make several 
adventures with impunity, and then could afford to have 
a lot seized for the benefit of the guardians of the 
revenue. 

These vast losses of revenue, this demoralization of 
the service, these great scandals, were rendered possible 
and easy by the methods of appointment. Each one 
attended sedulously to his partisan work, paid large 
political assessments cheerfully, and re-imbursed himself 
from plunder from the merchant or the government. 

At the end of Mr. Smythe's terms, Mr. Grinnell was 
appointed Collector. Mr. Grinnell had large experience 
in political matters. He made a very large number of 
changes. He was in about sixteen months, and he 
made over 500 changes. He was removed at the end of 
sixteen months and appointed Naval Officer, and Mr. 
Murphy was appointed Collector. Mr. Murphy repre- 
sented a certain faction in the Republican party, and I 
think it was his desire to use the customs service for 
the benefit of his faction. The consequence was that 



60 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

he was in about eighteen months, and made nearly as 
many changes as Mr. Grinnell had made. In the mean- 
time, Mr. Grinnell had come into the naval office. He 
was very much chagrined by the change of position. I 
was expecting to be turned out, and did not feel like 
talking to Mr. Grinnell, but after a while I had some 
conversation with him. Finally, I induced him to per- 
mit me to try a new experiment in the office. Mr. 
Grinnell permitted me to grade the clerks by a compet- 
itive examination. A month after that, Mr. Grinnell 
was removed, even from the position of naval officer ; so 
that experiment, as a matter of course, ceased at that 
time. 

Mr. Laflin followed Mr. Grinnell. He would not lis- 
ten to my proposition to continue these competitive 
examinations. The civil service rules were in operation 
for about two years. During that period, persons were 
selected by competitive examinations. After that time, 
the old system was resumed, and appointments were 
made by favor until President Hayes revived the com- 
petitive system. 

I would say that every time there has been a popular 
idea that this system was to be dropped, the class of 
men who presented themselves, and who have been 
examined at the next examination, has been of a much 
lower average grade. For instance, at the last examina- 
tion the men were of a lower grade than at any previous 
one, for the reason that after Mr. Robertson was ap- 
pointed Collector, there being a change of administra- 
tion, there was a prevalent opinion among politicians 
and others that the system was going to be dropped; 
that it had been a mere pet scheme of President Playes, 



STATEMENT OF SILAS W. BURT. 61 

and that the authorities would hasten to wipe it out. 
The consequence was that a large number of persons 
made application, and openly said it was a mere bag- 
atelle ; that the examination would not amount to any- 
thing; that they had the influences to secure the ap- 
pointments, and it was simply necessary that they should 
make application, since the examination was a mere 
form. That feeling was immediately indicated in the 
general average of the persons in that examination. 

This is one of the troubles that we have had to con- 
tend with. I say that the experiment has not had a 
full, fair trial. During the whole of 'the period, the 
general impression has been that it would last but a 
little while, that public opinion would not support it, 
and that the political pressure would overturn it. We 
have had to work under that very great disadvantage. 
We have not had, until recently, the moral support of 
the great mass of the people. 

You see there is a large share still of the clerks who 
came in under the old system, and who undoubtedly be- 
lieve in the old doctrine that was always announced there, 
that there was an implied contract with the person who 
was appointed that he should give a certain amount of 
his salary for the support of the party. That was always 
announced, and by men of very high position. They 
said : " You should not be mean. It was understood, 
when you were appointed and went in there, under this 
practice, that you would pay 2J, 3 or 4 per cent, of your 
salary annually ; and if you do not meet this demand so 
made, it is a very mean thing." 

Two years ago the State Committee called my attention 
to the fact that certain persons in my office had been de- 



62 CIVTL SERVICE REFORM. 

linquent in responding, and they sent me a long list of 
naval office clerks, with the sums alleged to be due set 
opposite to their names. I wrote back to the committee 
that the information they had sent me did not interest 
me at all ; and that was the end of it. 

When Mr. Robertson came in he represented one of 
the factions of the party, and I supposed that faction 
presumed as their friend was there he must do something 
for them. The pressure upon him was very great at first. 
There was a general impression that the system was go- 
ing to break down, and that induced people to make 
applications, and to importune him, so that for a long 
time he was very much embarrassed, and could not pay 
a great deal of attention to his other official business ; 
but I think the result of the last examination will not 
only relieve him, but the very fact that we have held an 
examination, and it was a very rigid one, will convince 
these people that the system is to be continued. I do 
not think the present appraiser has had a very earnest 
feeling in favor of the system. He has felt that it was a 
doubtful experiment that might be dropped at any time. 

When these rules were enjoined on us by President 
Hayes, they were enjoined upon us contrary to the ex- 
pressed opinion and wish of the then Secretary of the 
Treasury. Mr. Sherman never hesitated candidly to say 
that he thought it was a wrong system. He said he 
would carry it out, but he thought it was wrong. He 
did not think it was a proper system of appointment. 
Generally, he thought it was wrong. He thought parties 
should be able to control the offices ; that if a party had 
been successful in an election it should have control of all 
the offices. That was his theory and he was always very 



STATEMENT OF SILAS W. BURT. 63 

candid in expressing it ; but, at the same time, he in- 
sisted upon a compliance with these rules, and they were 
complied with quite rigidly. There was one exception 
in regard to Mr. Sherman. I had unfortunately, in a 
revision of these rules, made a modification. I had re- 
quested that the rules be modified, and the President 
subsequently consented to so modify them that temporary 
appointments might be made of such persons for three 
months, which might be renewed, if necessary, for an 
additional period of three months. It was an unfortunate 
thing, because it was taken advantage of to appoint men 
temporarily instead of permanently. They got around 
the rule in Mr. Sherman's time to this extent. The 
Presidential election was coming on, and there was from 
every point a constant pressure upon the Collector to 
put in men temporarily without examination ; and the 
temporary men were generally very poor men. I do not 
mean that the appointment of these temporary men was 
a violation of the letter of the rules, but of their spirit. 

I will supply you with what forms I think will be of 
service to you. You will find in this pamphlet some of 
the actual questions in a recent examination. They are 
as follows : 

What is the sum of 

307 millionths, 
56|- ten thousandths, 
68| hundredths, 
5 hundred thousandths, 
156J tenths, 

18f ten millionths, 
375 units. 



64 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

At $0,125 per pound, how much sugar can be bought 
for $6,255 ? 

An invoice of railway bars specifies 3,622 bars, 127 
feet long, weighing 60 pounds to the yard. What will 
the duty amount to at the rate of 70 cents per hundred 
pounds ? 

A certain invoice, amounting to £384, 8s. 3d., is sub- 
ject to a discount of 2^ per cent. What is the payable 
amount in United States currency, the £ sterling being 
worth §±.8665 ? 

In Geography. What bodies of water and of land 
separate the United States from South America ? 

Name the five important battles of the rebellion ? 

In what does treason against the United States con- 
sist ? 

In Grammar. Correct the following sentences : 

A ship sails splendid. 

His time as well as his money was lost. 

It was arranged between he and I. 

Letters. Describe the City of New York. 

These same general subjects are embraced in the pro- 
motion as in the admission examinations, but the latter 
are more technical and difficult. In promotion, also, past 
record is a very important item. 

The following are some of the " custom questions " in 
the promotion examination of March 29, 1881 : 

1. What department of the customs first assumes 
charge of vessels arriving from foreign ports ? 

2. What kind of papers authorizes the discharge and 
delivery of cargoes of merchandise ? 

3. What disposition is made of unclaimed goods ? 



STATEMENT OF SILAS W. BURT. 65 

4. Explain the difference between "bonded ware- 
houses," " general order stores" and " appraisers' stores ?" 

5. In which division of the Custom House are duties 
first estimated, and in which finally adjusted ? 

6. What are the duties and object of the weighers' 
department ? 

7. What is done with goods fraudulently imported 
in violation of the revenue laws ? 

8. What is the manifest of a vessel ? 

The board consists of three officers of the customs, one 
selected by the Collector, one by the Surveyor, and one 
by myself. That selection is made so as to render the 
board independent. Only one of them is amenable to 
any one officer. The board makes out a list of the men 
according to their standing. Right after the examina- 
tion to which I referred, I had a vacancy to fill, and no- 
tified the board, and they certified to me the names of 
the three standing first on the list. When the three 
names come in, I have, under the rules, the option to take 
any one of them. I send for the three men to appear, 
and I then try to judge, so far as I can, in order to se- 
lect from the three. I know exactly what the record of 
each in the examination has been, and I try to judge, so 
far as possible, from what they tell me of their past his- 
tory, and from their general appearance, &c. I have 
generally selected the one who stood first, but sometimes 
I have availed myself of my option. 

A great many go away with the idea that they have 
answered every question correctly, and when they find 
they are marked down 60 or TO, they feel outraged. 
The first desire of the Collector when he came in was to 
have an opportunity for larger selection. We had some 



66 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

talk about it, and he is willing now to take from the 
three highest. I think the outside pressure is still kept 
up. The politicians are still unsatisfied. If we had 
over us a supervising board, I do not think that we 
could do anything different. 



FORE THE COMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERVICE AND 
RETRENCHMENT. 

I am counsel for some of our large steamship com- 
panies in New York, who have, of course, a great deal 
to do with the Custom House officials. I am assured 
by my clients that, under the workings of the present 
system, the conduct of the Custom House work is very 
greatly improved ; that goods are entered, the entry is 
examined, and the duties adjusted and paid more rap- 
idly, more accurately, and with less complaint, than they 
were under the old system ; and further, whereas under 
the old system it was almost impossible to get any 
reasonable dispatch for goods without the payment of 
some gratuity to officers in the government employ, now 
those things are not thought of. The rules forbid them ; 
nobody expects to get them ; they are not asked for, and 
not given ; and the work is better done without such 
gratuity than it was under the old system, when they 
were exacted and paid. 

The municipal administration of the city of New 
York is one of the worst in the world, because, unlike 
our schools, which we have succeeded in entirely free- 
ing from politics, the municipal administration has 
been parcelled out pretty much between boards which 



STATEMENT OF EVERETT P. WHEELER. 67 

were supposed to be non-partisan, yet which, practically, 
have been the most partisan boards, perhaps, in the 
country. 

Take, for example, any one of them. It is not neces- 
sary to call names nor to advert to individuals, for the 
fault is the fault of the system. Take a board of four 
men, two Democrats and two Republicans. They have 
a large patronage by way of appointment. Practically, 
the patronage has been divided between them. The 
Democrats have appointed their friends, and the Repub- 
licans have appointed their friends. Then there have 
been factions in each party, and as each faction got the 
upper hand, it turned out the friends of the old faction 
and put in the friends of the new. 

There is no place where the evil of political assess- 
ments has grown more than it has with us. I do not 
speak only of federal officers, but of officials under the 
State and Municipal governments. I allude to that to 
point my argument as to the evils of the system. There 
has been no place where salaries have been kept up to 
such a height, in order to enable these assessments to 
be paid and in order to guard against the risk of re- 
movals. The premium on that risk which the public 
has paid to officials in the city of New York is an enor- 
mous sum. During the last twenty years, the system 
has especially prevailed there, and the worst evils of our 
administration and the greatest fraud have been perpe- 
trated under color of just such contrivances as those to 
which I have alluded ; that is to say, boards where the 
patronage ivas divided, where there was no adequate 
supervision, because each side did not feel responsible 
for what the other did, and hardly felt responsible for 



68 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

what it did itself, because of the uncertainty of its 
tenure, and because of the recognized fact that its ap- 
pointments were made, to a great degree, to further the 
purposes of a political party or of a faction of that party. 

I was told by a Senator the other day, that favoritism 
had been shown in a particular civil service examination 
to a degree that vitiated the action of the examining 
board. Everything depends upon what the questions 
are. We would have a practical test. I have had ex- 
perience as a member of the New York Board of Educa- 
tion. Its system in relation to teachers is similar to 
that proposed to be organized by this bill. 

New York City is divided into school districts. Each 
of these has its board of trustees, and the teachers are 
appointed by the local boards. Under the old system 
the boards of trustees were not limited at all in their 
selections and there was no appeal from their action. 
Each board had its standard of favoritism or personal 
selection. There were many incompetent teachers, and 
a great many appointments were made for political 
reasons or from personal friendship. 

Methods were adopted to correct these evils. A 
Normal College was established for the education of 
teachers. The entrance to that college is purely by com- 
petition. The candidates go up through the different 
classes in the grammar schools. They are examined, 
and so far as the result of the examination develops fit- 
ness they are promoted. When the applicants go up to 
the college and are examined, the best are selected. The 
process of training and selection continues until they 
graduate. The selection of teachers is chiefly made 
from these graduates. This selection is not limited to 






STATEMENT OF EVERETT P. WHEELER. 69 

those who are first on the list. The trustees select from 
those who are graduated from the college. If there is 
any complaint in regard to the action of the local boards, 
they form an appellate court to consider that complaint, 
and they make such changes from time to time in the 
rules for the appointment of teachers, and for their pro- 
motion, and for their removal in case of incompetency, 
as seem to them wise and proper. Practically, therefore, 
under our present system, appointments are chiefly, 
though not entirely, made as the result of competitive 
examinations. Very great has been the improvement 
in the condition of our schools. 

We have inherited from our ancestors the conviction 
of the importance of maintaining common schools, because 
the education we give in them is really a useful educa- 
tion. We think they do aid the boys and girls who go 
there, in qualifying themselves for their practical duties 
in life. If the training they get is a wise training; if 
the system has worked well, why should not the result 
of such an education have an influence in determining 
the qualifications of a person for admission to the civil 
service of the country ? To say that that ought not to 
weigh in his admission to the civil service is to say that 
the whole common school system is a failure. The educa- 
tion they have received will tell, and tell for a good deal 
in reference to their admission to the service. This ad- 
mission will not depend on the favor of a member of 
Congress or of the active politician in the district, but 
on the actual merit of the individual. I believe the 
system will have a hold on the people of this country 
that no other system ever had or could have. So far 
from it being opposed to the genius of our institutions 



70 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

it is inspired by that genius. It gives us, in the admin- 
istration of the civil service of the country, fair play. 
That is the American idea, that there shall not be any 
favorite classes ; that there shall not be any special 
privileges. We do not expect to see all men equal 
in capacity, but we mean, as far as we can, to make 
them equal in civil rights and in legal opportunities. 
Patronage is a weak point in our American government. 
The evil as it now exists has grown by degrees during 
the war, and more especially since the war. This is 
largely due to the fact that while there has been a good 
deal of public sentiment against it, yet there has been 
no one person and no body of persons whose direct duty 
it was to see that the evils were corrected. There has 
been a general responsibility placed on persons who had 
so many other pressing duties that the result has been 
what we now see. 



ABRIDGED STATEMENT OF EDWARD O. GRAVES, BE- 
FORE THE COMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERIVCE AND 
RETRENCHMENT. 

I am Superintendent of the National Bank Redemp- 
tion Agency in the Treasury Department. I was chief 
examiner under the civil service commission. Applica- 
tions were required to be accompanied by certificate of 
good character, sound physical condition, and loyalty to 
the Union and the Constitution. The rules were very 
precise- as to the mode in which the applications should 
be made, and all applications which did not conform lit- 
erally to the requirements of the regulations were re- 
jected. Under the civil service rules, the examinations 



STATEMENT OF EDWARD O. GRAVES. 71 

for clerks of the lower grades were substantially the 
same in all the departments of the government. The 
same methods of examinations were applied, and the 
range of questions were about the same. Of course 
some of the examiners were more capable than others, 
and they secured better results. The heads of depart- 
ments at that time had very little sympathy with the 
experiment. I know of no one of them who was thor- 
oughly in sympathy with it, and in some of the depart- 
ments men not very well qualified were designated as 
members of the board of examiners, and the results were 
not as satisfactory as they might have been, if there had 
been more competent men on the board. In August, 
1873, a new set of regulations were adopted, providing 
for what were known as district examinations, to meet 
the complaint that the regulations then in force gave an 
undue advantage to persons residing in Washington and 
its vicinity. 

Under these rules I was appointed chief examiner of 
the civil service. This system was abandoned in the 
Treasury Department, in March, 1875. President Grant 
orally directed Secretary Bristow to discontinue the 
rules. This action was due solely to the opposition of 
Congress. 

Under the present system there is a constant pressure 
upon the departments to make appointments, and as a 
consequence there is a like pressure by the heads of de- 
partments upon their subordinates, to devise pretexts 
for taking on new clerks. The extravagance of the 
present system was well shown in the examination of 
the Bureau of Engraving and Printing by a committee 
of which I was chairman. Of a force of 958 persons, 



72 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

539, with annual salaries amounting to $390,000, were 
found to be superfluous, and were discharged. The 
committee reported that for years the force in some 
branches had been twice and even three times as great 
as the work required. In another division were found 
twenty messengers doing work which it was found could 
be done by one. The committee reported that the system 
of patronage was chiefly responsible for the extravagance 
and irregularities which had marked the administration 
of the bureau, and declared it had cost the people 
millions of dollars in that branch of the service alone. 
Under this system the office had been made to subserve 
the purpose of an almshouse or asylum. In consequence 
of this report, the annual appropriation for the printing 
bureau was reduced from $800,000 to $200,000. 

It was found also in the examination that men who 
had had practical experience in clerical work succeeded 
best in the examinations. Of 61 persons appointed in 
the Treasury Department, under these rules, 42 gave their 
occupation as clerks, 7 had been teachers, 2 were book- 
keepers, 2 were students, and 7 had been engaged in 
mercantile pursuits.. Of 5 lawj^ers who competed no 
one succeeded, and the same was true of 3 editors and 2 
physicians. Of the 61, 42 were men and 19 were women, 
but nearly all the women were appointed to $900 clerk- 
ships. 

A considerable amount of money was saved to the 
Treasury during the civil service experiment, by the 
lapsing of the salaries of places which otherwise would 
inevitably have been rilled. I think it is of the highest 
importance that these examinations should apply to the 
$900 grade of female clerks. My observation teaches 



STATEMENT OF EDWARD 0. GRAVES. 73 

me that there is more pressure and importunity for those 
places, and that more time is consumed by heads of de- 
partments, and those having the appointing power, in 
listening to applications for that grade, than for all the 
other places in the departments combined; and that 
when it is discretionary with a department to appoint a 
man or a woman the choice is usually exercised in favor 
of the woman. I know a recent case in the Treasury 
Department, where a vacancy occurred which the head 
of the bureau deemed it important to fill with a man. 
It was a position where a man's services were almost in- 
dispensable ; but the importunity was so great that he 
was compelled to accept a woman, although her services 
were not needed. In consequence of this importunity 
for places for women, a practice has grown up in the 
Treasury Department of allowing the salaries of the 
higher grades of clerkships to lapse when a vacancy oc- 
curs, and of dividing up the amount among clerks, usu- 
ally women at lower salaries. In a place of a male 
clerk at $1,800 a year, for instance, three women may 
be emploj^ed at $600. Often the services of a man are 
required in its highest grade, while the women are not 
needed at all ; but, as the man cannot be employed with- 
out discharging the women, he cannot be had. The per- 
sons employed in this way are said to be on the lapse. 
In one case, thirty-five persons were put on the lapse 
fund of the Treasurer's office for eight days at the end 
of a fiscal year, to sop up some money which was in dan- 
ger of being saved and returned to the Treasury. 

I have no doubt that, under a rigid application of this 
proposed system, the work of the Treasury Department 
could be performed with two-thirds the number of clerks 
4 



74 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

now employed, and that is a moderate estimate of the 
saving. Any proposal to improve the methods of doing 
business, which involved a reduction of the force, is 
necessarily rejected. I have rarely known a Secretary, 
or even an Assistant Secretary, appointed from political 
life, to make a serious study of the methods of the de- 
partments, or to originate any improvements in them. 

In former administrations, I have frequently had 
clerks appointed on my roll whose services were not re- 
quired, and against whose appointment I protested. In 
some cases I refused to set them to work, and after a 
while they were transferred to other rolls. The head of 
a business house who would force clerks on his subordi- 
nates in this way would very soon find himself on the 
list of bankrupts. Continued raids are made on good 
clerks in order to provide places for others. Every pre- 
text is resorted to to make vacancies. Clerks suspected 
of being Democrats are ruthlessly slaughtered. One of 
my best book-keepers was discharged on that ground, 
although he was appointed under the civil service rules 
and never spoke about politics. I have no doubt, from 
general information, that the same system prevails with 
like result in all departments of the government. 

The act of 1853, still in force, requires every person 
appointed to any of the four grades of clerkships to be 
examined and found qualified by a board of three exam- 
iners, but these examinations, where they have not 
fallen into complete disuse, have become entirely insuf- 
ficient. There is no rigid standard, and it is discretion- 
ary with the examiner to say whether a candidate has 
passed or not. I have been told that the standard in 
one department, at least, is very elastic, according to the 



STATEMENT OF A. W. BEARD. 75 

amount of pressure in favor of the nominee. When it 
is not desired to appoint hiin, the standard is very high ; 
when there is strong influence in his favor, the standard 
is lowered. 

Whether it is due to the system of appointment or 
to the opportunity of employment elsewhere, the class 
of persons obtaining employment is deteriorating. I 
have heard a head of bureau deplore the impossibility of 
getting men of good qualifications in the lower grades 
from whom to fill vacancies as they occur in the higher 
grades. The Treasury Department to-day is almost 
.demoralized by the fear of arbitrary changes in the cleri- 
cal force. I do not know that the fear has any founda- 
tion, but the mere fact that there has been a change in 
the head of the department has unsettled and demoral- 
ized the force to a surprising degree. The same thing 
occurs every time there is a change of administration or 
of Secretary, and to a less extent whenever a new head 
of a department is appointed. It is a continued system 
of terrorism and demoralization. I have known a poor 
woman, who had a job of washing at $10 or so a month, 
required to share the job with another on the demand of 
one of the highest officers of the government. 

ABRIDGED STATEMENT OF A. W. BEARD, COLLECTOR OF 
CUSTOMS FOR THE PORT OF BOSTON AND CHARLES- 
TOWN, BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON CIVIL SER- 
VICE AND RETRENCHMENT, FEB. 18, 1882. 

The statement of Mr. Beard is of great weight, as it 
is the statement of business, in a business way, by a, busi* 
ness man. He says : 



76 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

I am Collector of the Port of Boston and Charlestown, 
arid have been since April 1, 1878. Connected with the 
Boston Custom House are about four hundred employees 
who hold commissions in the service aside from laborers. 
When I took the office I made two rules for myself in 
regard to the employees that were then in office. 

The first was as to their competency : Whether they 
were competent to fill the positions they held ; second, 
as to their character in the neighborhoods where they 
lived ; and I made it a practice not to remove if they 
had those two qualifications, competency and good 
character. In three years and ten months the number 
of removals in the force in my department has been 56. 
The removals have been invariably for cause. I mean by 
" cause," inefficiency or some bad habit, with, perhaps, 
three or four instances where there has been nothing 
against the performance of the duties of the office, but it 
was a matter of circumstances connected with their 
original appointment, and to make place for some deserv- 
ing soldier. One deputy collector, at $3 5 000 per annum, 
was among the new appointments. 

There were four deputies in my office. I re-appointed 
three and appointed a new one. With regard to promo- 
tion in the clerical service, this system has been fol- 
lowed : The clerks are divided into three divisions 
under deputies. Then there is a division of clerks 
under the auditor, and the cashier has several clerks. 
The way that I would get at the promotion of the clerks 
would be by getting the opinion of the head of the di- 
vision as to the clerk most deserving of promotion for 
his industry, and his qualifications in each division ; 
then get the deputies together and the auditor, and 



STATEMENT OF A. W. BEARD. 77 

compare the qualifications of the different men that were 
first in each division. If I had only one promotion I 
must make a selection from the best of the several di- 
visions. That has been the system followed. At the 
same time, it took me but a little while to have a per- 
sonal knowledge of every clerk, and know something 
about his qualifications myself. 

As to the outside force, which comes directly under 
the surveyor, I have a report at intervals which is partly 
confidential in its nature, from the surveyor's department 
of the qualifications of the different employees in the 
services, the day inspector, the night inspector and the 
assistant weighers, in which they are graded from one 
to five. That record is always before me, if there is 
anything to be done in that department in the way of 
promotion. You can see that promotion in the force 
under my charge is the result of competitive service de- 
termined by those having the best opportunities for 
observation of actual performance of duties. 

The surveyor understands that any report to me of 
conduct improper for an officer insures his discipline, 
and if it is of sufficient consequence, his removal,\and 
that he is not required to keep any man in his force wte) 
is not qualified for the position. So, if he should report 
an officer incompetent, I would recommend the removal 
of that officer. I have had no formal rules, no formal 
board of examination. As it is, it has brought the re- 
sponsibility of appointments on myself. I would not 
assume a responsibility when I did not have all the rights 
belonging to that responsibility. I mean all the power 
necessary for an efficient administration of the business 
I was responsible for. I think an officer should have 



78 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

force enough to say to the friends outside, that he would 
make his own appointments so long as he was respon- 
sible for the administration, without the help of a board. 
If he needed a board to assist him, I do not think he 
would be a proper man for such a place. No matter 
how high the standard of examination is fixed for the 
qualification of the employee, I should want the right of 
selection from all who passed that standard. I would 
not want the one marked highest among the applicants 
forced upon me for a position, if I did not think he was 
qualified for the position myself. Then would come in 
the question of personal responsibility of the officer in 
charge. I would hold all these officers on probation all 
the while. They are practically to-day, and they would 
be practically under either of the bills that I have looked 
over, on probation. They are removable for cause at 
any time, and inefficiency is a cause. My idea, as I 
said before, would be that you should have a standard 
of examination below which a man should not be ap- 
pointed, and above which the right of selection should 
lie with the appointing power. 

With regard to the service outside the clerical force, 
I do not think the public generally, and perhaps even 
members of Congress, are well posted with regard to the 
division of labor of custom houses. Less than one- 
fourth of the force in my department is clerical. 

We have eighty to ninety inspectors. An inspector's 
duty under a surveyor is to go on board a ship, when it 
comes to port, and take possession, compare the cargo 
with the manifest of the ship, see that everything that 
is on the manifest is accounted for, and see that every- 
thing on board that ship is on the manifest. 



STATEMENT OF A. W. BEARD. 79 

We have steamers coming in with from two thousand 
to five thousand tons of cargo. They get in on Monday 
or Tuesday, and that entire cargo must be discharged, 
and all these comparisons made with accuracy, and the 
ship reload and depart, by the next Saturday. It crowds 
into a few days a great deal of work, a great deal of 
business, and it requires first-class business ability to 
perform the duties of inspector. The inspector must be 
a good business man. I do not think that place should 
be filled, as a rule, by promotion. You can see at once 
what kind of ability it needs to take charge of a vessel 
and see that the cargo corresponds with the manifest. 
The responsibility of delivery is on the inspector. We 
have three or four to a ship — some times more ; but there 
is one who has the responsibility of the cargo upon his 
shoulders — he is responsible for it. 

Then all the cargo must be weighed that is weighable, 
and it requires a very high class of ability in the 
weigher. It requires even a better business capacity to 
make the returns and make the weights accurate than 
is required of an inspector. I do not think the position 
of weigher could always be filled by promotion. A man 
with business experience, wholesale grocer, for instance, 
or a retail grocer, any man who had to do with mercantile 
business, with the weighing and delivering of goods, 
might be found more competent to take that position of 
weigher, and superintend and manage men, than any 
man already in the force, though in the cases I have had 
I have filled them by promotion. I have made two ap- 
pointments of weighers and filled them by promotion, 
but I do not think either has been fully successful. I 
think I could have gone outside the force and taken some 



80 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

competent business men, and been better satisfied with 
the result. With regard to filling the clerical positions 
by promotion, that is practicable in most cases till you 
get to deputy collectors. 

Deputy collectors' commissions expire with their chief's, 
and new deputies are appointed when there is a change 
in the collectorship. I should suppose that under either 
of these bills, they would have to be filled by promotion. 
Now, as collector, responsible, giving bonds for the faith- 
ful administration of the ofiice, I would not want men 
to be made deputies, authorized to use my name, in 
.whose selection I had no power, or that I was obliged 
to select from the force already in service when I took 
possession of the office. As to the men who are my 
lieutenants, for whom I am responsible, I should want 
a right to select those men from the force or outside of 
the force. I would feel the same about the confidential 
clerk who is, practically, the collector's private secretary. 
A man who gives his bonds for the discharge of the 
duties of an ofiice like the collectorship, and who is 
obliged to place deputies in that ofiice, for whom he and 
his bondsmen are responsible, should not be limited in 
the selection. I am responsible for the action of my 
deputies. My deputies classify goods, levy duties and 
collect duties, and it is impossible for me, with a hundred 
entries in a day, to know just what is done. I am liable 
to be sued by the merchant for any illegal exaction, and 
that matter is done by a deputy. I am obliged to have 
a special deputy in my absence, who signs checks, and I 
am held responsible for him. He does not give bonds 
to the department ! I do ! And if he should in my ab- 
sence use the public money, I am responsible. Just so 



STATEMENT OF GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 81 

with the cashier. I am responsible for the cashier. 
He ought not to be appointed either by promotion or by 
examination, by anybody else than the collector. Every 
appointment is confirmed by the Treasury Department, 
under the present rule. The auditor, who draws all 
checks, through whom all disbursements are made, I 
take bonds from. I am responsible for him. He ought 
not to come under the provision of promotion or exam- 
ination. 

One great object in passing the civil service bill be- 
fore Congress, as Senator Butler remarked, is to prevent 
removals and appointments on political pretexts ; but it 
seems that parties are to be recognized in the first sec- 
tion of the bill, by two of one party and one of the other 
party being on the commission. This would give a 
majority to one party. You cannot avoid political in- 
fluence so far as the moral influence of fhat commission 
would be on one side or the other, according to which 
side had the majority. 



ABRIDGED STATEMENT OP GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS, BE- 
FORE THE COMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERIVCE AND 
RETRENCHMENT, FEB. 26, 1882. 

My ofiicial relations to this subject for a time under 
General Grant's administration, brought me into con- 
fidence with a great many official gentlemen in various 
parts of the country, and in various branches of the 
service. On one occasion there was a very heavy assess- 
ment made in the' New York Custom House. A body 
of gentlemen connected with the service there, made 

representations to me of their absolute inability, with 
4* 



82 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

justice to their families, to pay this assessment in ad- 
dition to others that had been levied at about the same 
time, during the same jear. I replied, of course, that, 
officially, I had nothing to do with the matter, but, know- 
ing the Collector, I would wait upon him and see what 
could be done. I went to the Collector, whom I knew 
personally very well. I stated the case of these gentle- 
men, and he heard me with politeness— with impatient 
politeness — and when I had ended he brought his fist down 
on the table with great emphasis and said, "Well, Mr. 
Curtis, for every one of the gentlemen in this office who 
are unwilling to pay this assessment, I know of at least 
fifty, whose names are duly registered, who would very 
willingly take the place with all the incumbrances." 

Mr. Jefferson, although he was entirely willing to 
use the patronage of the government politically, thought 
it would be impolitic. He saw what the consequence 
must be, and he laid down the principle, to which he 
endeavored to conform, that there should be what lie 
called a fair proportion. Each party should have its fair 
proportional share of the offices. This had been DeWitt 
Clinton's principle in New York, under the council of 
appointment. This plan Mr. Jefferson carried out. 
During Mr. Jefferson's administration, he having con- 
ceded the principle that the patronage of the minor offices 
might be used politically, held the gates against the 
gathering flood that was becoming more and more power- 
ful, and when Jackson came in, the spoils carnival was 
simply the bursting of the gates from which Jefferson 
had drawn the bolts, and which he held by main force. 

Some years since, there was a form — it was nothing 
more — of application of the rules at the custom house in 



STATEMENT OF GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 83 

New York, and the board of examiners was a board 
selected by the Collector. As the Collector at that time, 
however, was not favorable to the scheme, he was open 
to the suspicion of "putting an infant to his enemy to 
nurse." I attended one of the examinations, and what 
I saw was plausible and fair, but I was aware I could 
not see everything, or really know the facts, and, as I 
did not suppose the scheme to be in favor, I attempted 
no more. I am not of my own knowledge in a position 
to speak of these examinations further. 

The system of appointments which is practiced in this 
country to-day, if not to be defined as aristocratic, is 
absolutely oligarchic. I suppose, upon a moderate com- 
putation, ninety per cent, of the persons who are fit and 
naturally desirous of serving the public have no chance 
whatever to enter the public service, nor even the oppor- 
tunity to try to enter it. What we want is a fair com- 
petition of all who desire to enter the service. I say the 
spoils system is oligarchic. The English service, open 
to competition, is the most absolutely democratic. With- 
in the range of places open to competition, the son of 
the Archbishop of Canterbury, the son of the Duke of 
Leeds, has no possible advantage over the son of a coal- 
heaver. Mr. Gladstone, when he was last prime min- 
ister, made a speech to his constituents at Greenwich, in 
which he said, " I am the head of the treasury, but I 
have no more voice in the appointment of the clerks in 
the treasury than any of you who hear me." 

Referring to what is called the book examination, 
what we need in the branches of the civil service to 
which the general scheme applies, is fitness in the largest 
sense. This includes character, and what is called 



84 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

faculty, tact, adaptiveness. A man may know all the 
Greek and Roman history, and be able to solve all the 
problems of Euclid, but he may not have that peculiar 
tact, quickness, insight, which is desirable. He may 
not have that knowledge of men, that gift of prompt 
dealing with affairs which is indispensable in a thousand 
offices. He may not have good manners, and in a public 
office good manners, as President Arthur says in his 
message, are very important. There is no more de- 
termined effort than that which is made to persuade the 
public that what is called the competitive system means 
that a man who knows the stars in the constellation of 
Orion better than somebody else, is, therefore, fit to be 
made a messenger in the custom house, or an appraiser 
of lace. The truth is that fitness, in a large sense, being 
the objective point in any public service, the competitive 
scheme is the only one that provides for ascertaining it, 
and that not by "book examination," but by actual 
experience or probation. 

Mr. Thurlow Weed occasionally writes a letter to dis- 
credit the reform, and he says the man who answers the 
most questions gets the best place. As a matter of fact 
in one sense, that has nothing to do with a man's getting 
a place. The book examination is the first barrier 
which is interposed to personal pressure and influence. 
The book examination, or a reasonable test of general 
intelligence, breaks down personal pressure. 

At an examination within this past month, all the 
papers were exceedingly reasonable. There was not a 
question to which any valid objection could be taken. 
There were perhaps eight or nine series of papers. One 
of them was simply a request to write a business letter 



STATEMENT OF JOHN L. THOMAS. 85 

upon a simple subject that was presented. Another 
contained a few general questions in regard to subjects 
upon which every fairly informed man has some knowl- 
edge. There was still another paper of easy geographical 
questions, these being custom house appointments. The 
rest of the papers bore directly on the duties to which 
the person, if appointed, would be immediately assigned. 
These seventy gentlemen who applied to be clerks in the 
custom house, and whose first duty would be to deal 
with figures, were requested to write in text the sum 
expressed by certain figures. The next proposition was 
to express by figures the sum written in text. Within 
half an hour three of the gentlemen came to the table 
and put down this first paper and said they withdrew 
from the examination. They were unable to answer the 
questions, and saw that it was useless to proceed. 



ABRIDGED STATEMENT OF JOHN L. THOMAS, COLLECTOR 

OF CUSTOMS FOR THE PORT OF BALTIMORE, 

BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERVICE 

AND RETRENCHMENT, MARCH 4, 1882. 

I was elected to Congress in 1866. I was appointed 
Collector of Customs for the port of Baltimore by General 
Grant in 1869. I devised some rules of my own, in 
which I constituted myself the chief examining board, 
and appointed my two deputies to assist me in exam- 
ining all applicants for clerkships in the custom house ; 
and in every appointment which I made to a clerkship, 
the applicants were always submitted to an examination 
as to their qualifications for the particular desk for which 
they were applicants. 



86 CIVTL SERVICE REFORM. 

I found not only in my first term, but in my second 
term, that there was great pressure from all parts of the 
State for changes on the part of politicians, not for the 
good of the service, but for what they claimed to be the 
good of the party. There was hard]y a day that I was 
not pressed by somebody from some section of the State 
to remove somebody and put somebody else in ofiice. 
The result of all that was, that men who were originally 
friends when I first went into ofiice, because I resisted 
their importunities and kept in good men, became bitter 
enemies. 

As the law now stands it makes the Chief, like the 
Collector, of Customs responsible for his subordinates, 
and, in case any of his subordinates become guilty of 
malfeasance or misfeasance, the chief on his bond is 
held responsible, and that being so, he ought to have 
something to say in regard to who shall be retained or 
appointed as his subordinates; and if a law is passed 
organizing a board under the power of the general govern- 
ment to examine all applicants for ofiice, and the persons 
so passed upon by them shall fill the subordinate po- 
sitions in the custom house, the law should be so changed 
as to make every man responsible for his own acts, and 
not hold the Collector responsible for appointments made 
in that way. There is in the Baltimore Custom House 
a force of one hundred and eighty men. There are only 
two of that number who were there before I went into 
the office in 1869. Since that time no Democrat has 
been appointed. I did not appoint any Democrat. I 
do not think there is any one in the service there who is 
not a Republican. Of course, in relation to politics, I 
do not suppose there was anybody of the opposite polit- 



STATEMENT OF JOHN L. THOMAS. 87 

ical party who ever applied for a position there. I did 
not know of any. The applicants were all known to be 
Republicans, and, generally, in every application they 
would state what their services were in the party, I 
think it was pretty well understood that no others need 
apply. When I was pressed to make removals, the 
general allegation of a cause why the removal should be 
made would be, that the man they wanted removed was 
not serviceable to the party, or was a political enemy, or 
something of that kind. If they could bring any charge 
against any person of malfeasance or nonfeasance, they 
would be very sure to find it out and bring it ; but in 
the majority of cases there would be no charge of that 
kind. It would be simply that they had been there long 
enough, or that a better man to the party ought to have 
the place. 

The Collector is responsible legally for all his subor- 
dinate officers, I mean financially responsible. I retained 
a Deputy Collector who was a Deputy Collector under 
my predecessor. I discovered that he had been stealing, 
and I had him arrested and indicted, and on investigation, 
it was discovered that he had stolen some $28,000 to 
$30,000 from my predecessor and myself. I was legally 
responsible with ray predecessor for every dollar that 
man stole, and I was compelled, as my predecessor was, 
to come to Congress and ask for relief, and Congress 
passed a bill for our relief ; otherwise we should have 
had to pay that amount of money. It was a total loss 
to the government. I afterwards compelled, not only 
the auditor who disbursed all the money, but the cashier 
and his deputies and clerks, who received all the money, 
to give me a personal bond, which was an additional 



88 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

security to me. I required this of my own motion. 
The law does not require it. I think it would be well 
for the government to require security to be given by 
every person who receives or handles money. In case 
a vacancy should occur in any of the places now under 
a Collector, and his power was taken away from him 
under the law to make a proper appointment, and should 
be given to a board with which he has nothing to do, I 
should think he ought to be relieved of the responsibility 
of these appointments. 

ABRIDGED STATEMENT OF HENRY HOB ART BATES, BE- 
FORE THE COMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERVICE AND 
RETRENCHMENT, MARCH 18, 1882. 

Mr. Bates said : I entered the Patent Office in 1868. 
I was appointed as second assistant at that time. I 
have been there ever since. 

There are approximately one hundred examiners, 
twenty-four principal examiners in charge of divisions, 
and three assistants of different grades to each principal. 
This does not include the clerical force of the office, 
which has not hitherto participated in the competitive 
system. The classes are divided into such separate 
branches as can come consistently under the charge of 
one expert examiner. One of our first qualifications for 
assistant examiner is his capacity to read a mechanical 
drawing. If a man cannot read a mechanical drawing he 
is disqualified. So also in respect to a lack of knowledge 
of elementary mechanics and of physics in our business. 

In 1880, the Secretary, in concurrence with the Com- 
missioner, designated me to be one of the board to hold 



STATEMENT OF HENRY HOBART BATES. 89 

an examination for admission to the examining force as 
well as for promotion. We had, say eighty-five appli- 
cants, yet that was a selected number. The eighty-five 
had been selected from two or three hundred ; these can- 
didates were admitted to the examination somewhat with 
reference to political reasons. It is not everybody who 
applies that is admitted to the examinations. The 
Commissioner and Secretary admit those people whom 
they suppose are eligible for any reason, political or 
otherwise, and they exclude others. The Secretary has 
his own ideas and own discretion about that, and if he 
chooses to make a political test there, he can do so. 
There is nothing to prevent it that I know of. He 
picks out a list on grounds satisfactory to himself, and 
all we have to do with it is to examine the persons 
named. 



APPENDIX. 

As the writer of this treatise has made some slight 
" footprints on the sands of time," which, if seen, may 
cheer the penniless orphan in his aspirations to a higher 
grade of education, it seems proper to append the follow- 
ing brief sketch. William B. Wedgwood is a native of 
the State of Maine. He was born in the town of 
Parsonsfield, County of York. He was not quite two 
years of age at the time of the death of his father. At 
the age of seven his mother placed him under the care of 
Maj. John Moore, a wealthy and intelligent farmer of 
that town. For the next ten years he attended the 
public schools for six months in the year, and worked on 
the farm for six months. 



90 APPENDIX. 

In the fall of 1828, he attended the academy at Wolf- 
borough, N. H., where Vice President Wilson received 
his academic education. He taught his first school in 
that town the following winter. He spent the next six 
months in the service of David S. Greenough, at Jamaica 
Plains, and at Cohasset, Mass. In the fall, he entered 
the academy at Effingham, N. H., then under the in- 
struction of the Hon. James W. Bradbury, of Augusta. 
The next fall, he entered the academy at Limerick, 
Maine, where he completed his preparation for college 
under the instruction of the Rev. Asa D. Smith, D. D., 
late President of Dartmouth College. 

He entered Waterville College in the fall of 1832, in 
the class of the late Judge Dickerson, one year in ad- 
vance of Gov. Benjamin P. Butler. Eev. Dr. Chaplin 
was then President of the college. On the 4th of July, 
1834, the students had a celebration, and a dinner at 
the Hall on the college grounds. On the morning of 
the 5th, the students assembled in the chapel for 
prayers. The services were conducted by one of the 
professors. The President then addressed the students. 
He commenced by saying, " Young gentlemen, you must 
be aware that the Faculty are displeased with your con- 
duct in your celebration yesterday. When we heard 
your shouts of applause, we really thought you were 
inebriated, but we are glad to learn that you used no 
intoxicating liquors, but we are compelled to say that 
you conducted yourselves more like boors and jackasses 
than like gentlemen." Immediately after leaving the 
chapel, the students sent a petition to the President, 
asking permission to hold a college meeting. This priv- 
ilege was denied by the President. The Philomathean 



APPENDIX. 91 

Society was then called together, and all the students 
were invited to attend. A college meeting was organ- 
ized. A delegation of two members of each class was 
sent to the President to explain the circumstances under 
which the celebration was held, and to inform him that 
his remarks had created intense excitement, endangering 
the harmony and friendship hitherto existing, and to 
entreat him, for his own interest and the prosperity of 
the college, to modify or withdraw his objectional 
language. Mr. Wedgwood was one of the delegates 
from his class. The delegation waited on the President, 
but he refused to make any withdrawal or modification. 
The excitement continued to increase during that day, 
and the next day, at evening prayers, the professor who 
conducted the services announced to the students that 
Dr. Chaplin was no longer President of the college — that 
he had forwarded his resignation to the trustees. This 
announcement at once allayed all excitement. Dr. Bab- 
cock was soon after elected to fill the vacancy. 

About this time Wendell Phillips and William Lloyd 
Garrison visited the college and lectured to the students 
on abolition. As nearly all the young men in the col- 
lege spent their vacation in teaching, these lecturers 
shrewdly suggested to them that, as they were all ex- 
pecting to become public men, it would be a valuable 
exercise for them to prepare a lecture on some subject 
and deliver it in the district where they should teach. 
They offered to furnish the students with statistics 
and documents to aid them in the preparation of their 
lectures if they should choose the subject of abolition. 
This resulted in sending from the college, the following 
winter, a hundred young men as lecturers on abolition. 



92 APPENDIX. 

Mr. Wedgwood taught in Dixmont the following 
winter. He prepared a lecture and delivered it in the 
district. Senator Knowlton, for many years in the 
Maine Senate, presided. His son, Hon. Ebenezer K. 
Knowlton, was one of his scholars. 

The following winter, Mr. Wedgwood taught at Orono. 
He was invited to lecture there on the subject of 
abolition. He accepted the invitation, and gave notice 
that he would speak for one hour and allow half an hour 
for an answer, reserving to himself fifteen minutes for a 
reply. Gov. Washburn was then a young and rising 
lawyer in that town, and he was selected to answer the 
lecturer. The programme was strictly carried out in the 
presence of a large and enthusiastic audience, but the 
sympathy of the audience was clearly on the side of 
abolition. 

The next fall he left Waterville College and entered the 
University of the City of New York, where he was gradu- 
ated in 1836. Soon after graduating, he was invited to 
take charge of the Dutchess County Academy, at Pough- 
keepsie, N. Y. He was Principal of that institution for 
two years. Four of the students then preparing for col- 
lege under his instruction, have become judges of the 
Supreme Court of that State. 

In 1838, he commenced the study of the law at 
Pbughkeepsie, under the instruction of Seward Barculo, 
one of the Judges of the Supreme Court. In 1840, he 
left Poughkeepsie and entered the office of Attorney 
General Ambrose L. Jordan, in the city of New York. 
He took an active part in the Harrison and Tyler cam- 
paign. He formed an intimate acquaintance with and 
friendship for Hon. Horace Greeley, which continued 



APPENDIX. 93 

to the time of the death of that distinguished citizen. 
He aided Mr. Greeley, materially, in securing that un- 
precedented circulation of his campaign paper, " The 
Log Cabin." 

In 1841, Mr. Wedgwood was admitted to practice at 
the New York Bar, and went into business with Abra- 
ham Christ, at 49 Nassau Street. Mr. Christ was on 
board the Hudson River steamboat Henry Clay, at the 
time she took fire, and, being an expert swimmer, he 
succeeded in getting several passengers to the shore, 
but at last so many caught hold of him that he was 
carried down and drowned. 

Mr. Wedgwood, in connection with his early practice, 
was constantly engaged in disseminating a more thorough 
knowledge of our institutions and laws among the 
masses of the people. He got up a course of popular 
debates at the Broadway Tabernacle, in which he acted 
as Secretary, and the Hon. Hugh Maxwell was Presi- 
dent. In this course the question of the abolition of 
capital punishment was debated for three evenings be- 
tween Hon. J. L. O'Sullivan and Hon. Horace Greeley 
in favor, and Rev. George B. Cheever and Rev. Samuel 
Hanson Cox in opposition. Mr. O'Sullivan had been a 
member of the New York Legislature the previous year, 
and had made an elaborate report in the Assembly in 
favor of the bill for that purpose when it was before that 
body. Mr. Greeley was then the editor of the Tribune. 
He was well known as an editor. This was one of his 
earliest efforts as a speaker. Dr. Cox was an orator, 
and Dr. Cheever was distinguished by the logic and 
strength of his argument. The house was crowded to 
overflowing during the three evenings. Mr. Greeley 



94 APPENDIX. 

said at the close of the debate, " Mr. Cheever, you have 
routed us, horse, foot and dragoons, but we console our- 
selves with the idea of Napoleon, that victory does not 
always establish right, but is always on the side of the 
heaviest guns." Mr. Cheever' s argument was published, 
and it still has great influence in sustaining the law 
where it exists, and restoring it where it has been re- 
pealed. 

In 1844, Mr. Wedgwood made an effort to secure a 
more general diffusion of the knowledge of our constitu- 
tions and laws among the masses of the people. He 
prepared a work, suitable for that purpose, on the con- 
stitution and laws of the State of New York. This work 
sold to the extent of over one hundred thousand copies. 
His effort was approved and applauded by the press, and 
by the friends of popular education generally. 

He took a deep interest in the campaign of 1844. He 
had made the acquaintance of Mr. Clay, and was in- 
timately acquainted with Mr. Erelinghuysen, who was 
then Chancellor of the University of the city of New 
York. He heard the last speech made by Mr. Clay at 
Raleigh, N. C, before he was nominated at Baltimore. 
He visited Mr. Clay at Ashland, during the progress of 
the campaign. Mr. Clay said to him, " I have defeated 
myself and my party. I have written two letters on 
the annexation of Texas, one intended for the North, 
and one for the South. My political enemies are making 
more capital out of these letters than my friends. I do 
not regret my own defeat, but I do regret the defeat of 
my party." Mr. Wedgwood told Mr. Clay that he was 
decidedly in favor of the annexation of Texas, and that 
he was prompted in advocating that measure by his op- 



APPENDIX. 95 

position to the extension of slavery — that although 
England, France and the United States had entered into 
a triple alliance to suppress the slave trade, and had made 
it piracy for the subjects of either nation to engage in it, 
that Texas was not bound by that alliance, and could 
allow the importation of slaves, but, if admitted into the 
Union, she would be bound by that treaty. Mr. Clay 
assured him that if elected he should not oppose the 
annexation of Texas. 

Mr. Wedgwood afterward visited General Jackson at 
the Hermitage, with an intimate friend of the General 
who had just returned to Tennessee from New York. 
He reported to the General that he found the banking 
interests of the State strongly in favor of Mr. Polk, and 
opposed to Mr. Clay and a United States Bank. The 
music of coming victory was everywhere heard. As in 
1840, it came with the refrain — 

" Van, Van, Van, is a used up man, 
And with them we'll beat little Van." 

Now it comes with — 

" Poor Henry Clay, poor Henry Clay, 
You can never be President, 
For Polk is in your way." 

Mr. Polk was elected, and Texas admitted into the 
Union. 

In 1845, Mr. Wedgwood visited England. He was 
invited to deliver the opening lecture in the course of 
1846, before the Western Literary and Scientific In- 
stitution at Leicester Square, in the city of London, and 
was requested to speak on the subject of slavery in the 
United States. He accepted the invitation, and on the 
8 th of January, 1846, the anniversary of the battle of 



96 APPENDIX. 

New Orleans, he delivered his lecture before a dis- 
tinguished audience of English and American citizens. 

He traced the rise and progress of slavery from the 
landing of twenty negro slaves at Jamestown, from a 
Dutch man-of-war, in 1620, to the time of the Revolution. 
He claimed that up to the time of the Revolution, Eng- 
land and the United States were one nation, speaking 
the same language, and governed alike by the principles 
of the common law, and that every act which tended to 
the glory or shame of the one country, tended to the 
glory or shame of the other. After the Revolution each 
was separately responsible for its own acts. 

He then proceeded to show the progress of the United 
States in the cause of emancipation. She had abolished 
slavery in a majority of the original States. She had 
secured to freedom the north-west territory by the 
Wilmot Proviso, embracing five large States. By the 
Missouri compromise, introduced by Henry Clay, she 
had prohibited slavery in all her territories west of the 
Misssissippi River and north of latitude thirty-six thirty. 
He said : " This audience will acknowledge that we 
have done much in the cause of universal liberty, and 
we shall not cease from our efforts until our flag proclaims 
to the world what England's flag now proclaims, that all 
over whom it waves are free. But how can this be ac- 
complished ? I answer, England has furnished the only 
equitable and legal precedent. She exercised the power 
of eminent domain, a power existing in every govern- 
ment, which authorizes the government to take private 
property for public purposes, on paying a just compen- 
sation therefor. England exercised this power, set free 
all the slaves in her Territories, and paid the owners 



APPENDIX. 97 

their value. The slaves in the United States would not 
be valued at more than three hundred dollars each, and 
the value of all the slaves would be less than twelve hun- 
dred millions. / am in favor of adopting England's 
compulsory compensative policy in the United States" 

This lecture gave great satisfaction to the Americans 
in London, and he was invited to dine, on the following 
Sunday, with the American Minister (Mr. McLain), 
where he met George Peabody, the banker, Washington 
Irving, Minister to Spain, Gansvort Melville, Secretary 
of Legation at London, and N. P. Willis. He took a 
deep interest in the success of the Colony of Liberia. 
He was a member of the Board of Managers of the New 
York Colonization Society, and was twice selected to de- 
liver the annual address at its anniversaries. 

In the summer of 1846, he returned to New York and 
resumed the practice of the law. He was engaged in 
many of the most important suits of that day. The 
French government had retained Francis B. Cutting and 
Francis E. Tillou, two of the most eminent lawyers of 
New York City, to secure the extradition of Nicholas 
Lucian Metzgar, charged by that government with 
embezzlement in the office of Notary Public, and escaping 
to the United States with a large amount of public and 
private funds. They procured a warrant from Mr. Justice 
Drinker, of the Police Court of the city of New York, 
and Metzgar was arrested. He retained Ogden Hoffman 
and Mr. Wedgwood to defend him. They demanded a 
hearing before the Justice, which occupied six days. 
The decision of the Justice was against the prisoner, 
and he delivered an elaborate opinion, which was pub. 
5 



98 APPENDIX. 

lished in the New York Tribune, occupying four or five 
columns of that paper. 

Mr. Wedgwood, in consultation with Mr. Hoffman, 
raised the question of the jurisdiction of the State courts 
in cases arising under treaties with foreign countries, 
and desired to test that question on habeas corpus before 
one of the Judges of the Supreme Court. Mr. Hoffman 
expressed doubt on that question. He said to Mr. 
Wedgwood, " You are a young man, and can afford to 
make a mistake. I cannot. If you will procure the 
writ in your own name, I will assist you in the argu- 
ment." John W. Edmonds, one of the justices of the 
Supreme Court, issued the writ. After full argument 
by the counsel on both sides, Judge Edmonds decided 
that the State courts had no jurisdiction in any case 
arising under a treaty with a foreign nation, unless 
specially conferred by Congress. The prisoner was 
therefore discharged from custody. He was then ar- 
rested in the United States Court, and finally discharged 
on the ground that Congress had neglected to pass a law 
directing the mode of carrying the treaty with France 
into effect. 

In 1848, he received the unanimous nomination for 
member of Assembly, in the Fifth Ward in the city of 
New York. The Whig party then had a majority of 
six hundred in that ward. He, however, declined the 
nomination. Ambrose L. Jordan was then a candidate 
for the office of Attorney General, and Hamilton Fish 
was a candidate for Lietenant-Governor, to fill a vacancy 
for one year. They were both elected. At their re- 
quest, Mr. Wedgwood consented to spend the session at 
Albany, and take charge of the Journal of the Senate. 



APPENDIX. 99 

There were three young men in subordinate positions in 
the Legislature of 1848, who had official access to every 
member of both houses. They met one evening and 
nominated Hamilton Fish for Governor. They agreed 
to make a canvass of both houses, and ascertain the 
wishes of the party, and in the course of two or three 
weeks every Whig member of both houses had pledged 
himself to support Mr. Fish. This was done without 
the knowledge or consent of Mr. Fish. John Young 
was then Governor, and a candidate for re-election. 
When Mr. Wedgwood informed Mr. Fish of the result 
of the canvass, Mr. Fish strongly objected to the use of 
his name as a candidate in opposition to Mr. Young, but 
so great was his popularity, that almost the entire con- 
vention voted for him ; Governor Young getting but 
twenty-seven votes in the convention. Mr. Fish was thus 
placed in the rank of rapid promotion from Lieutenant- 
Governor for one year to Governor for two years, to 
United States Senator for six years, and Secretary of 
State for eight years. 

In 1850, California was admitted into the Union as 
a State, and soon after the Missouri Compromise Bill 
was repealed. The repeal of this bill created great in- 
dignation throughout the free States. Public meetings 
were called to denounce the action of Congress. A 
public meeting was called at the Park, in the city of 
New York. Mr. Wedgwood presided at* that meeting. 
Delegates were sent to a State Convention to meet at 
Saratoga. He was one of the delegates. At this conven- 
tion it was proposed to organize a new party, founded on 
the principle of no more slave territory. Mr. Wedgwood 
was solicited to lead that party as its nominee for gov- 



100 APPENDIX. 

ernor. He approved the principle of " no more slave terri- 
tory," but strongly opposed the formation of a new party. 
He believed that the time had not fully come for such 
action. He saw in such a movement the end of the old 
Whig party. He preferred to wait and see the effect of 
the opening of Pandora's Box in Kansas. The proposi- 
tion to form a new party at that time was defeated. 

Mr. Wedgwood has always taken a deep interest in 
the education of the people from the primary to the 
professional schools. He had often expressed a desire 
to see a Law School established in the city of New York. 
He brought the subject before the Alumni Association of 
the University at their annual meeting in 1857. He 
was appointed chairman of a committee to investigate 
and report at their next annual meeting. The report 
was made at the alumni dinner at the Astor House in 
1858. It set forth the local advantages of the student 
at law in attending a law school in that city, and recom- 
mended a plan of organization. This report was pub- 
lished, and it resulted in the establishment of two law 
schools the next fall ; one in connection with Columbia 
College, under the direction of Prof. D wight, and one in 
connection with the University, under the direction of 
Prof. Wedgwood. 

When the Prince of Wales visited this country in 
1860, and was about to visit New York City, Prof. 
Wedgwood suggested to Chancellor Ferris the propriety 
and desirableness of extending an invitation to him to 
visit the University. The Chancellor brought the sub- 
ject before the Council, who were of the opinion that 
it would be useless to invite him, as he would have so 
many places to visit that he would not accept the invi- 



APPENDIX. 101 

tation. Mr. Wedgwood then asked the Chancellor if 
there would be any objection to his making a personal 
effort to secure a visit from the Prince. He replied, 
"Not at all, we should all be delighted if it could be ac- 
complished." Prof. Wedgwood went immediately to the 
office of the British Consul, and stated to the Consul that 
as the Prince of Wales was then a student at Oxford, and 
his father, Prince Albert, was then Chancellor of Oxford 
University, the Council, Chancellor, Professors and stu- 
dents of the University of the city of New York desired 
to receive a visit from the Prince on his arrival in New 
York City. The Consul said the arrangement of the 
visits in New York was left to him, and if a formal in- 
vitation were left with him he would forward it, with 
his dispatches, to the Prince, then in Cincinnati, that 
afternoon, and it would be accepted. Prof. Wedgwood 
reported to the Chancellor, and he requested him to act 
as Chief Marshal, and take entire charge of the recep- 
tion according to a programme to be arranged between 
him and the British Consul. In the order of the visits 
of the Prince, the visit to the University was placed at 
the head of the list. The reception was to take place in 
the chapel of the University. Tickets were issued to 
invited guests. On the morning of the reception, the 
Council, the Chancellor, the Professors of the different 
Faculties, and the students of the different departments 
and classes assembled at nine A. m., in full University 
dress, and were organized under their Deputy Marshals. 
The students were arranged in double columns along the 
halls, the corridors and stairways where the Prince was 
to pass from his carriage to the chapel. At ten o'clock, 
precisely, the Prince and his suite arrived at the Uni- 
5* 



102 APPENDIX. 

versity, and alighting from their carriages were received 
by Prof. Wedgwood, as Chief Marshal, and conducted 
to the Chancellor. The procession then moved to the 
chapel. As the venerable Chancellor entered with the 
young Prince on his arm, Dodworth's Band played u God 
Save the Queen/' and a thousand ladies rose to welcome 
the young son of Queen Victoria, and heir to the British 
Crown. The Prince was conducted to the platform 
erected in the chapel, followed by the members of his 
suite, and the Counsel and Professors of the University. 
The Chancellor then read his address of welcome. Prof. 
Morse made a short address. He was on deck in mid- 
ocean, when the idea of the Electric Telegraph flashed 
into his mind. His first experiments were made in that 
University. When he went to England with his infant 
telegraph, a noble Lord, whom he then recognized on 
the platform, kindly took him by the hand, and greatly 
aided him in nursing it into vigorous life. The formal 
exercises then closed, and an informal introduction fol- 
lowed. The members of the House of Lords accompany- 
ing the Prince, expressed great pleasure in meeting four 
distinguished professors of the University, Professors 
Draper, Bedford, Morse and Mott. After a pleasant 
visit of an hour, the Prince and suite returned to their 
carriages, and as they left, the students, drawn up in 
lines on the sidewalk, gave three times three hearty 
cheers for the Oxford Student. 

When the Tax-payers' Peform Association was organ- 
ized in the city of New York, Mr. Wedgwood was an 
active member and secretary of the organization. It 
embraced six thousand of the largest tax-payers in the 
city. They held the balance of power in the three exist- 



APPENDIX. 103 

ing political parties. Three candidates had been nom- 
inated for Mayor. A convention of the Tax-payers' 
Organization was called at the Everett House to de- 
termine who should be elected. Sixty delegates were 
present, representing more than thirty millions of tax- 
able property. A committee of three was appointed to 
wait upon Messrs. Boole, Gunther and Opdyke, the three 
candidates nominated, and ascertain their views on the 
subject of reform, and recommend a candidate to be 
supported by the Association. Mr. Wedgwood, as 
Secretary of the Association, was directed to attend the 
committee. The committee executed their trust and 
unanimously reported the name of Mr. Gunther. Mr. 
Wedgwood moved to substitute the name of Mr. Opdyke 
for the name of Mr. Gunther reported by the committee, 
and made an elaborate argument in favor of his motion. 
After an exciting debate of more than two hours, his 
motion was carried by a two-thirds vote, and Mr. Opdyke 
was endorsed, and was elected Mayor. 

In 1860, the degree of LL.D. was conferred upon 
Prof. Wedgwood, by Eutger's College, N. J. 

When the class of 1860, in the Law Department of 
the University of the City of New York, graduated, they 
presented to him a valuable gold watch as a token of 
their respect and attachment. The presentation was 
made by Col. J. Lafayette Riker, a member of the class. 
Col. Piker raised a regiment officered principally by 
students of the University, and joined the Army of the 
Potomac. He was killed at the head of his regiment at 
the battle of Pair Oaks. Prof. Wedgwood advocated a 
vigorous prosecution of the war for the preservation of 
the Union, to the extent of the sacrifice of the last man 



104 APPENDIX. 

and the expenditure of the last dollar, and when vol- 
unteers could not be procured he advocated the draft ; 
and when he received notice that he had been drafted 
and that he would be considered a deserter if he left the 
city, he reported at headquarters, ready to march to the 
front at a minute's warning. He did not at any time 
hesitate to say that he believed that ten unselfish states- 
men on the floor of Congress, armed in the holy cause of 
" equal justice to all men," could have prevented the 
war. When Congress, in 1864, passed a bill to abolish 
slavery in the District of Columbia, and appropriated 
one million of dollars to compensate the owners, and two 
hundred thousand to aid such as desired to emigrate to 
Liberia, President Lincoln signed the bill and returned 
it with a special message congratulating Congress on its 
endorsement of the two great principles of compulsory 
compensated emancipation and voluntary assisted emi- 
gration. Mr. Sumner declared that this was the first 
practical result of emancipation, and that he regarded 
the appropriation not as a compensation to the owner, 
but a ransom for the slave. He said Washington used a 
golden key to release the Algerine prisoners. We are 
using the golden key to release the fettered slave. If 
Mr. Sumner, from his seat in the Senate, had fifteen or 
ten years earlier declared to this nation, "I have found 
a ransom ! It is the Golden Key made on the pattern of 
the Golden Eule, costing only twelve hundred millions 
of dollars, by which the pound of flesh may be taken 
without shedding one drop of blood/' there would have 
been no war. The ransom by the sword has already 
cost the nation more than eight times the price of the 
golden key, drenched our soil in blood, filled our land 



APPENDIX. 105 

with widows and orphans, and shrouded in the silence of 
a soldier's grave more than half a million of our most 
enterprising young men. 

In 1867/ Mr. Wedgwood brought out his work on the 
Government and Laws of the United States, in which 
he attempted to present a short and comprehensive view 
of the rise and progress of our government, from the 
settlement of the first colony to the complete organiza- 
tion of the government, under its State and national con- 
stitutions, with the principal laws by which we are 
governed. 

In 1869, he removed from New York to Washington. 
The following winter he took an active part in feeding 
the Freedmen, who had flocked in large numbers to that 
city. Five thousand persons were furnished with food 
and fuel for three months, from the private contribution 
of the citizens. 

Prof. Wedgwood saw around him at Washington, 
hundreds of crippled soldiers, who had left their books 
on the desk, their tools on the bench, or the plow in the 
furrow, and at their country's call had hastened to the 
bleeding field to save the life of the nation. They had 
faced danger in every form, had shed their blood, left their 
limbs on the battle field, and had suffered long confine- 
ment in hospitals and prisons. The government had 
provided no means to aid these young men in pursuing 
their studies. Prof. Wedgwood determined to supply 
this defect. He saw the opportunity to realize and es- 
tablish the National University, so ardently recom- 
mended by Washington, and exactly in accordance with 
his plan, but without any pecuniary aid from the gov- 



106 APPENDIX. 

ernment. Congress authorized the establishment of the 
University. 

The charter made the President of the United States 
ex officio Chancellor, with a Vice Chancellor, Board of 
Regents, and Faculties of Professors for each depart- 
ment. Prof. Wedgwood was elected Vice Chancellor. 
He associated with himself the Hon. Arthur McArthur, 
one of the Justices of the Supreme Court of the District 
of Columbia, and Hon. Joseph Casey, Chief Justice of 
the Court of Claims. These three lawyers were made 
Professors, and composed the Faculty of Law. In ac- 
cordance with the recommendation of Washington, the 
Law Department was first put into operation. Prof. 
Wedgwood purchased the Soldiers' Free Library Build- 
ing in Judiciary Square, and gave the free use of it to 
the University. The Professors agreed to give their 
services without fee or reward. In the month of Octo- 
ber, 1870, the Law Department of a free National 
University was thrown open to the aspiring soldier. 
Students flocked in large numbers to the new University. 
The course of instruction was thorough, covering two 
full years. At the annual examination in 1872, thirty- 
one students were found qualified to receive the degree 
of Bachelor of Laws. The first annual commencement 
was held at Lincoln Hall. Senator Wright delivered 
the first annual address. The Vice President and many 
Senators were present. The hall was elaborately deco- 
rated. The music was furnished by the Marine Band. 
Amidst a forest of flowers, surrounded by Senators and 
Judges, in the presence of their admiring friends, thirty- 
one students of the University received from the hand 
of President Grant their diplomas, signed by him as 



APPENDIX. 107 

Chancellor of the University, an honor never before re- 
ceived by an American student. 

For nine years Prof. Wedgwood gave his services for 
the promotion of the interests of the University. He 
saw its usefulness and popularity constantly increasing. 
He saw his students who remained in the departments 
rapidly rising in the rank of promotion, and others form- 
ing partnerships with influential firms in the practice of 
the law in all parts of the country. His students have 
been honored not only by positions in the civil service, 
but as heads of departments and chiefs of bureaus,- 
member of the Cabinet and member of Congress. He 
can point proudly to them and say, " These are my 
jewels." 

He now sees that the civil service can be utilized in 
the promotion of Popular Education. With its aid 
thousands of educated and well-trained young men and 
women may annually be scattered over this country to 
elevate the standard of education, industry and pros- 
perity, and to banish idleness, illiteracy and poverty 
from the land. He is engaged in securing the establish- 
ment of Training Schools, and fixing a uniform standard 
of education for entering the Military Academy at West 
Point, the Naval Academy at Annapolis, the National 
University at Washington, and all departments of the 
civil service. He hopes to see these Training Schools 
established in every school district, and even in every 
family. He solicits no subsidy, no appropriation, no 
donation. He earnestly solicits the personal aid and 
co-operation of all the friends of Popular Education. 
Let there be a spontaneous uprising in favor of Reform ! 
Organize ! ! 



